Getting to Know You
by Dreaming of Everything
Summary: Sideswipe and Sunstreaker have arrived on earth. That means that all they need to do is track down Optimus Prime, get rid of the pack of Decepticons after them and not scare the local wildlife. That should be easy, right? Gen, OC, ensemble, G1 characters.
1. Chapter 1

**Getting To Know You  
****Chapter One  
**By Dreaming of Everything

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Transformers in any of its various incarnations. The only characters I do own, in fact, are Bec and her father.

**Timeline/Author's Notes**: This fic is set in the 2007 movieverse; however, it brings in characters from other verses. This is ordinarily not a problem, but I'm really only intimately familiar with the movie canon. For that reason, I'd like it to be known that **I'm not claiming that I'm writing these characters; I'm writing an **_**interpretation**_** of their characters for a different canon.** Think of it as what the movie did for the characters that Michael Bay used. They're _based_ off of what you're familiar with, and I'm doing my best to stick true to that, but research will only do so much.

…yeah, feel free to yell at me about that in reviews/PMs/whatever. It's a questionable move. I'm pretty hesitant about it myself. Also, I'd like it to be known that I blame **Epona Harper** (in the best way possible) for planting the seeds of this fic—although I wouldn't recommend you go yell at her. This is _entirely_ my fault, in the worst way possible.

That said, I hope you enjoy the story!

A brief note: Why Sunstreaker and Sideswipe? Well, because they suited my purposes. I can't say they're my favorite characters (not that I really have a favorite character) but Sunstreaker in particular had the ideal personality for what I wanted for this fic.

This is tentatively planned for three chapters, but they are all likely to be doozies. That is what I get for writing my outline and _then_ dividing it into chapters. For example, this chapter is 19 pages long. Gah.

oOoOoOo

Just out of college with a fresh new degree in astronomy, he'd gotten a job at a small observatory in the Oregon desert. That had been ten years ago, by now; he'd been married for the past five, and had kids for the past three. He was a decent astronomer, and probably could have gotten a higher-profile job, but he'd never had any urge to leave his life in Oregon.

And the observatory he worked out really was a pretty decent one, all things told. They were six hours away from Portland by car, and the nearest town—the one he lived in, along with most of the rest of the astronomers—was an hour away, and tiny. It had a peak population of 300 during the summer and the holidays, when all the vacation homes filled up. It was small, but good, and the schools were decent enough, even if it was a bit of bus ride to the high school, which was a town over from them. That wouldn't matter for quite a few more years, of course, but he planned on staying.

It had been a quiet evening until the small, localized meteor shower had started. It had been—odd, to say the least. It had apparently come out of nowhere, and it was spanning a remarkably uniform circular area with a radius of one mile, with only slight variation. One or two of the meteorites had managed to break through the atmosphere, but none of them had landed anywhere near what would count as civilization. There was that, at least. His first guess was that something larger had splintered, but the borders were remarkably neat for that. If he could retrieve the ones that had made their way through the atmosphere he could compare their chemical make ups…

The astronomer paused for a minute in his diligent note-taking, frowning at night sky above him.

His eyes widened at the sudden flare of light as two meteors broke through the atmosphere, breaking into flame as they arced towards the ground, towards _him_, although logically there was only the slightest chance that they would end up hitting the observatory, statistically speaking…

The shudder of the impact was enough to drive him to his knees, breath shaken out of him. Hesitantly, he got to his feet and started walking cautiously towards the door, speeding up as the overhead sprinkler system came on—something had probably been snapped or shifted by the vibrations, the thought dazedly.

Not even fifty feet away from the building were two huge impact craters, the ground plowed up around them; they were still smoking, and the air was thick with the dust they had thrown up.

Wide-eyed, he approached the twin holes. There was nothing in them. _Nothing_. Not even a little pebble. Just cooling dirt and rocks, and slowly settling dust.

And what looked like a single giant footprint in one—and not an entirely human one. Far from it, even when you didn't consider size.

Maybe he was going crazy, or it was shock. Or something. Possibly the meteors actually _had_ hit the observatory, and this was what his brain had dredged up as he slowly bled to death. Maybe he was actually asleep right now, and dreaming.

It would take him half an hour to think of the robots that had caused what had been termed the Mission City Incident. He would call the police that evening. Two days later he would be on a plane with his wife, his three-year-old son and his six-months-old daughter on their way to Vermont. For some reason or another, Oregon just didn't feel all that safe anymore.

oOo

It had taken them a full three Earth days to find an 'acceptable' alt form. Personally, Sideswipe blamed Sunstreaker for being so vain, and for it making him so picky. They had finally (_finally!_) found something he approved of, in the driveway of one of the better-guarded vacation homes. It meant that they didn't need to keep sneaking around at night—the daylight hours had been spent in a fairly thick patch of woods. Sideswipe was usually all for sneaking, but it hadn't been pleasant, by any stretch of the imagination.

Currently, the two of them were heading further out into what the humans had termed, cutely enough, 'the middle of nowhere.' Judging by the reactions they seemed to be getting, they didn't blend in all that well.

Sunstreaker was actually pretty smug about that fact. It figured. He had to admit, though, that their new car forms were extremely attractive, and he was not nearly the egoist his twin was.

They were still stuck traveling at night. The last thing they needed was someone spotting that there weren't any humans in them—from what he'd gathered from human media, not many of them were big on the Transformers as a whole. The fact that they'd left behind craters from their impact was bad enough, and he was pretty sure that that one human had noticed the footprint he'd left exiting the hole before he had been able to sweep it away.

The whole no-human-drivers thing was a big problem, actually. They needed to be able to travel, and they needed to be able to do it without drawing any attention to themselves. The Decepticons they'd had on their asses were still out there, probably narrowing in on Earth, and they still needed to locate Optimus Prime and whoever was with him.

But _nooo_, they couldn't just send a message. That would make things too _easy_, and you couldn't have that, right? Nope. One of their old teammates had defected, and they'd been attacked before their encryption codes had been changed; anything they sent through any means other than verbal communication could and would get picked up by the traitorous turncoat.

And Sideswipe had a holographic projector, and had a program running that would come up with a fairly realistic image of a human to 'drive' him, but Sunstreaker didn't. He'd never gotten a holodrive installed. Sideswipe had only had one put in because it had come in handy when he was playing tricks, but Sunny really only participated in that sort of thing when Sideswipe talked him into it.

Even just traveling at night was kind of risky, and it would get worse as they got closer to larger human settlements.

It wasn't looking good…

oOo

"If any of the organics get anything revolting on my interior, I won't be responsible for what happens," sent Sunstreaker. Sideswipe hesitated—he was nearly at the point where their short-distance frequencies were ineffective, and the long-distant communication channels weren't safe any more. Smoothly, he pulled off to the side of the road. His illusory driver appeared to bend over to rifle through an (empty) glove compartment, an equally holographic map appearing in his hands as he sat up. Sideswipe's attention was focused on something entirely different as the 'driver' unfolded the map and appeared to look it over.

"A lot's hanging on this, Sunny. Don't blow our cover for something too minor. I'm relying on you, here."

"Yeah, yeah. I notice _you're_ not the one selling yourself off to an organic."

"I _told_ you a good holographic system would come in handy—"

"No, Sideswipe, you told me—and I'm quoting—'I bet we could really slag around with someone with a good holographic system!'"

"Same thing. Be careful, though, okay? We don't know where _any_ of the Decepticons are, and all we've got to go on when it comes to locating Prime is a set of coordinates months old and a few exaggerated, doubtfully factual, highly suspicious sightings reported on this planet's information network."

"You, too. Not that you've ever really proved yourself capable of controlling yourself…"

"I'm hurt, truly. Especially when it comes from _you_, Mr. Self Control."

"Huh. Get driving, already."

"But _you're_ the one who stopped me, Sunny!"

There wasn't a response, although Sideswipe waited for a few minutes. As he pulled away again, he barely caught a final transmission: "Hurry back."

They'd been alone a long, long time.

oOo

It had started out as a what-if and a single shard of metal, the last remains of the Allspark.

It was ending now, with a rebuilt corpse and that same piece of metal. They didn't have anything to lose, because they'd already lost it, or him. None of them had gone into that final battle really expecting to live, but they hadn't expected that _Jazz_ would die.

And regret and irrational, half-crazy ramblings had brought the four known remaining Autobots to this. Now, they were all watching Ratchet work: the three humans closest to the Autobots, Sam, Mikaela and Captain William Lennox, were watching on a video screen a ways away, where they would be safer if something went wrong.

Ratchet paused as he prepared to slide the shard of the Allspark into where Jazz's spark had been. "This might not work," he said, as much to convince himself as anyone else. "It might not do anything. It might animate the body, but not be Jazz at all. Nobody's ever been stupid enough to try this before, or even think of it, even assuming that they had had the materials. I've checked the records."

He'd also looked into the human fictional novel, Mary Shelley's FrankensteinThe similarities were—unnerving.

Carefully, hands held perfectly steady, he slid the shard into the rebuilt, fully functional but empty shell of the robot who had been Optimus Prime's second in command and a close friend to all of them.

Nothing happened.

The tension in the room grew until it was nearly unbearable, and then kept on growing, until all of the Autobots could feel the tightly-reigned energy crackling around them—and they realized the air really _was_ filled with energy, blue-white sparks that snapped and bit, weaving around and through themselves in a complex, three-dimensional pattern that filled the room, radiating out from the prone form that had been Jazz. Ratchet bit off a cry of surprise, only half-heard over the shrieking of the not-quite-lightning-like movements of the energy the room was filled with.

And then Jazz sat up yelling, his cannons firing a hole through the wall of the building and a considerable stretch of woodlands beyond that, before he slumped back down.

"Out of the way," snapped Ratchet as he pushed his way back towards his charge, glaring at Bumblebee, who looked cheerfully unaffected by the slight reprimand.

After a few minutes carefully inspecting the now-lax body, he began snapping orders. "Ironhide! Get me that rack over there. Bumblebee, I told you to _stay out from under my feet_, and get me a piece of tubing about this long, and the middle size from that tool drawer over there—the third one from the bottom. Optimus, whoever or whatever we've brought back is suffering from total energy drain. Would you please monitor that machine over there? It should be set to level six, and tell me if anything changes. Captain Lennox, contact the Pentagon and inform them that _something_ happened, but we're not sure who, yet, and we won't be able to tell until after he's conscious again. Ironhide, would you be _careful_? For Primus' sake, that's sensitive medical equipment!"

oOo

Geoffrey Kurtz was feeling pretty good about himself. He'd been worrying over what to get his daughter—the youngest of three, his baby girl—for her 21st birthday, but he kept on drawing blanks. She hadn't had much in terms of helpful suggestions, and he wanted it to be something _big_. His other kids had all gotten big-ticket items when they turned 21, and he'd be damned before his little Rebecca felt that she wasn't as good as they were. Plus, he'd always liked to spoil her, and he knew that there would be _talk_ if there was even the slightest hint that his fortune was going to collapse, and a 'hint' could be anything from selling off a house or a yacht to not getting anything of any importance for one of his kids' birthdays.

He was getting too old to deal with all of this shit. Maybe he should retire in the next year or so, get a house on the coast and relax for once in his life. If his father were still alive, he'd have a heart attack—another one—at the very idea. He'd never been idle a day in his life, and it was that sort of work ethic that had made Geoffrey Kurtz the man he was today.

The man who had just bought his daughter a brand new Lamborghini—sunshine yellow, her favorite color, drove like a dream—as the perfect 21st birthday present. She needed a car—she had refused one when she'd started college, saying that it would take up too much room in the city—now that she was taking correspondence courses from her own little home out in the country. He'd have found her a better apartment and helped her with the rent on that, but the last time he'd called she'd waxed lyrical about how much she loved the place she was at. He didn't understand it, but he was willing to respect it. All of his kids were great, but Bec had always been wise beyond her years. He trusted her judgment, so he'd let her stay, even if it meant the neighbors talked a little. He could deal with that. He'd been taking worse shit than that for years.

And that was part of why he loved Bec so much. She never argued. She was calm, peaceful. He liked that. You just didn't see that kind of thing, these days. Yeah, all the yuppies talked about all their talk about yoga and Zen, but true peace? You just didn't see it. He sure didn't have it, for one. He was too much of a businessman. He got it from his old man. He didn't know where Bec got her personality, but it sure as Hell wasn't from him. He couldn't even understand his Rebecca most days, they just worked so differently. One of his damn psychologists had explained some of it to him once, with 50-dollar words and seemingly endless psychobabble, but he'd puzzled out most of what he'd come to realize all by himself. Him and Bec, they just had two different ways of thinking. And some days he just couldn't understand hers.

oOo

Bec waited at the end of the driveway until her Dada's taxi had crested the big hill and was fully out of view, then walked up the driveway and past the blaringly yellow Lamborghini now sitting, gleaming, in her driveway, and stepped through the open doorway into her house—_her_ house, even if it was just a rental—and through the living room and then the kitchen. She locked herself into the bathroom, and cried for half an hour.

It wasn't that she hated her Dada. She loved him very much. It was just that he didn't _understand_. He never had, really. This always happened, on her birthday. Every June 10th, no matter what, ever since 1994, when she had had her 7th birthday, she'd been horribly disappointed. She had gotten the doll she had wanted, and a full wardrobe of doll clothes, with matching ones for her, and a playhouse to go with it for her 7th. The next year she had asked for art supplies and a book about gardening. She had gotten a pony that had scared her so badly she hadn't gone anywhere near where it was stabled for half a year.

And this year she had asked for books—a new plant guide, a few collections of essays—and garden supplies (some seeds and plants she wanted to try, a new lightweight shovel, five cubic yards of manure) and she had gotten a hideous monstrosity of a car in burn-your-eyes-bright golden yellow.

That wasn't fair, though. The car was, in fact, gorgeous. The sort of car even someone like her could recognize as incredible. And it was a pretty color, even if a bit glaringly obvious for her tastes.

But it was… ostentatious. To say the least. She hadn't _wanted_ a car at all, let alone one that would turn heads—and keep them turned—wherever she went. She had been idly flipping through the car ads before, trying to find something close enough to being a junker that a college student could reasonably own it and far enough away from one that it would still run reliably, but she hadn't moved fast enough.

At least her Dada hadn't gotten her a new rental house. She _liked_ this one. She was finally getting the gardens together, getting them to actually look halfway decent. It had been a close thing.

And so she spent half her birthday crying against the cool tiles of her bathtub, waiting for it to be over, wishing that her father would just _listen_ for once in his life and get her what she wanted.

Sometimes he did listen, though. She had to be fair when it came to that. The first plant Bec had ever fully grown had been a sunflower she'd sprouted and tended in her third grade science class at her expensive, exclusive private school. When it had bloomed she'd been so proud. She told her Dada that yellow was her favorite color ever, and sunflower yellow her most favorite. She'd gotten yellow dresses—hideous with her skin tone—and yellow bedsheets and yellow roses and yellow dishes and everything else you could imagine in yellow as gifts ever since. And now she had a car that was bright yellow. Summer sun yellow. Daffodil yellow. Sunflower yellow.

Of course, he hadn't caught on that yellow wasn't her favorite color anymore.

At least her mother wouldn't be able to visit for at least a week. She was busy again—another string of meetings. She was flying out to Milan, and might have to delay it another week if things didn't go smoothly. When they'd talked, she'd said, in her rich, deep voice—a voice like melted chocolate—that if it went into a third week she'd be 'forced to shoot herself, something not even the divorce ever pushed me to consider.'

If Bec remembered correctly, she was pretty sure her mother was incorrect—she definitely had memories of suicide attempts. That was unlike Mom. Accuracy had always been one of her sticking points.

She sighed, and stood up, brushing a hand over the deep, bruised indent the shower handle had left in her shoulder.

She needed groceries. It was time to go for a drive.

oOo

"Did you just say hello to your car?" said Miles as he ducked into Bumblebee, fumbling for the seat belt. "That's a little weird." The seat belt seemed to suddenly stick.

Sam tried to look like he hadn't jumped at the accusation, and then tried to look like it was perfectly normal to talk to your car. Nope, no alien robots here, folks, just keep right on moving. He'd gotten used to that in the last year.

But he kept on forgetting himself around Miles. It was tricky, erasing years of habit and friendship. But Sam just couldn't come out and say something like 'Hey, you know those robots who attacked Mission City? Well, one of them's my car and my _other_ best friend, want to meet him?'

But it was getting tricky. It was only complicated by Mikaela, who said 'hello' to his car as well—she'd never forgotten herself around Miles, but that was probably helped by the fact that Bumblebee was a two-seat car, and himself and Miles and Mikaela made three. With Bumblebee they were four, but he didn't really _need_ a seat, it being a part of him.

The typical answer as to how he'd gotten his 'new' car—'It got busted in the Mission City incident, and the government paid for a new one. I think they gave me a nicer one than the one I'd had so that I don't sue'—had worked for Miles, so that wasn't an issue. The fact that the radio still appeared to be broken (not that it was, Sam knew) was possibly more risky, in terms of what would or would not attract Miles' attention as abnormal.

His parents knew, of course, but his dad still flinched a little, whenever he treated Bumblebee like the fellow sentient he was around him. His mother seemed a little nervous still, but she kept on asking Sam all of these weird questions ("What does he eat?" "How much can he feel?" "Isn't it weird riding around _inside_ him?") which was a good sign. Or a bad one—from the asking-Sam-questions phase she'd move on to the asking-Bumblebee-questions phase, and then she'd move straight on to threatening-Bumblebee-to-bring-Sam-back-by-curfew-or-_else_. And from there she'd probably end up taking on Ironhide (and probably _winning_) for something-or-other.

His mom had what one of his old teachers had politely termed a "forceful" personality. Captain Lennox had told him that Secretary Keller had told him that her letters and phone calls had been one of the driving forces behind the shutting-down of Sector Seven. Judy Witwicky didn't hold a grudge unless it involved her son, her dog or her roses. Simmons had managed to mess with hall three.

He thought that Miles was starting to suspect something, though—they'd been best friends for _years_. They'd told each other everything. But now Sam had another best friend and three—maybe four again, now—other friends, all of whom weren't even human, and four new, human friends—Epps, Will, Glen and Maggie—and government identification that gave him a higher security level clearance than most of the rest of the government, let alone average civilians, when it came to certain things. And a direct line to the Secretary of Defense. There'd been talk of naming him a diplomat if or when the Autobots were revealed to the world. Miles didn't know that. Miles didn't even fully know how Sam and Mikaela had gotten together, and he'd been involved in that from the first. (Actually, some of the more disastrous getting-to-know-you plans had been Miles' fault.) Of course, _Sam_ wasn't entirely sure how he'd gotten together with Mikaela, and he'd lived it.

"You're quiet today," Miles said, shaking Sam out of his thoughts. "You get in a fight with Mikaela or something?"

"Huh? No! I guess I'm just tired. The homework always gets piled on at the end of the school year, and I'm studying for finals. Dad says he'll talk Mom into moving my curfew if I bring home good grades."

"Yeah, rub in the fact that you've got a _reason_ to want an extended curfew—I still don't know how the hell you managed to get Mikaela Banes, Most Wanted Girl In the School, to go out with _you_. Rumor has it that she likes guys with muscle."

"Hey! You make me sound like some nerd incapable of—"

"Sam, my friend, you _are_ some nerd."

"Perhaps, but I'm some nerd who's _dating Mikaela Banes_ and has, quite possibly, the coolest car in the world."

"I dunno, man. The radio seems kind of messed up, and yellow's kind of a girly color."

The engine revved, although Miles remained oblivious. "I like the yellow," said Sam mildly.

"If it works for you, I guess. You should take down these things on the dashboard mirror, though, at the very least."

"Hey! Stop messing around with my car!"

"Seriously, don't come crying to me when Mikaela leaves you because you've got dorky things on your rear-view mirror."

"I… Really don't think that's ever going to be a problem," Sam said, trying to hide the amusement in his voice. Bee was the last reason Mikaela would ever break up with him. _Remember,_ he thought. _Miles doesn't know. Keep it that way_.

"So, what are you doing on Friday?"

"I'm going up to the look-out with Mikaela. Why?"

"Awww, man, you always do that. It's been forever since we've had an all-night movie marathon—and it's your turn to pick the theme."

"I'm sorry, Miles, but I really can't miss this. Next week for sure, though."

"The bros-before-hos rule is shot to hell and back by now. One of these days I'm going to get a girlfriend, and _then_ you'll see what it's like. And you'll call and want to—What's going on?"

"I can hear a police siren," said Sam.

"Yeah, you're right. That's weird…"

"You haven't gotten any neighbors, have you?"

"Nope, this road's still just us. And nobody's home—"

Before Miles had even really finished his sentence the car's doors had shrugged open. "Barricade," hissed Sam. Then, urgently, "Miles, get out. This is really important. I need you to get out of the car _right_ now."

"What? What's going on?"

"Get _out_ of the car, Miles. Really. As your friend for more years than I can count, I'm _begging_ you get out of the car and step away from him a little."

"Okay, okay, I'm going! Christ, you're weird. I don't see why this is so important—and you use weird pronouns for your car."

Bumblebee began to shift, moving upwards into his bipedal form.

"Thing is," said Sam, "He's not really a car."

"Holy _fuck_," said Miles.

And then Barricade came hurtling down on them, meeting Bumblebee, with a clash of metal. "This way!" yelled Sam, over the clangs of two mechs in combat, and the whirring of cannons charging.

The two boys ran down the winding country road until they were far enough away that the sounds of battle had faded to only the loudest collisions and the occasional explosion.

Miles seemed so overwhelmed that he couldn't manage to actually get one of the hundreds of questions overwhelming him fully said.

"How—what—_giant robots?_"

"They're Transformers—Autobots and Decepticons. The Autobots want to save Earth; the Decepticons want to kill the humans. Those old glasses I was trying to pawn off—you remember them?—well, as it turns out, they held the coordinates of this super-powerful cube the Transformers were all fighting over. It was being guarded by that super-secret government agency, Sector Seven, that got shut down a few months ago, and we ended up stealing it and then going to Mission City to fight the Decepticons. I stuck it into the chest of Megatron—that's the leader of the Decepticons—which killed him. There's three Autobots on Earth right now, and a fourth who's maybe being brought back from the dead. But more might be arriving."

Miles' eyes looked glazed.

"That's really creepy, but also the coolest thing I've heard in my entire life. Giant alien robots? It's liked the bad cartoons I watched during my childhood, only a thousand times better."

"Also, they can all turn into cars, which is how they hide."

"Awesome." There was a brief pause. "I think I'm going into shock."

"My second real experience with the Transformers, I was attacked by Barricade. Bumblebee fought him off that time, too. He's one of the smaller Autobots—only one of them was smaller, and he was dead and might be alive again—was shorter. He's a killer fighter, though."

There was another pause. "Are you okay?" said Sam carefully.

"…Maybe?" squeaked out Miles.

The two sat in silence for a few minutes. Miles finally opened his mouth to speak, but before he could get a word out a piercing scream rang out through the woodlands.

"That sounds like it's coming from back where the fight is," said Sam, rising to his feet from his sitting position at the base of a tree, next to Miles.

"So why are we running _towards_ it?" said Miles plaintively as he ran after Sam's rapidly-retreating form.

"I never asked you to follow me!" yelled Sam over his shoulder.

The two turned a final curve that revealed the tail end of Barricade, who was fleeing the scene, and Bumblebee trying to talk to a panicking human.

"_Trent_?" said Miles in disbelief. "What are you doing _here_?"

"Giant robots," said Trent, voice heavy with terror.

"Uh, are you okay?" said Sam hesitantly, taking a step towards the jock. They were not on the best terms, to say the least.

"_You_ must be the one who keeps on changing the 'Gillon' on our mailbox to 'Gibbon!'"

"Oh my _God_. I— I—"

"It's okay. This robot here? This is Bumblebee. He's not going to hurt you—he just finished keeping that other robot, the one that just left, from turning you into smoothie," said Sam, voice soothing.

"…thank you?" said Trent, sounding dazed, looking in the direction of Bumblebee with wide eyes.

"I think he got hit on the head," said the Autobot helpfully.

"Damn. We can't take him to a hospital like this," said Sam, shifting back a few steps to get a look at the back of his head. "Everyone and their second cousins would know about you guys by the end of the second shift."

"I've got stuff at home," offered Miles. "But do I have to let him inside?"

The combination of Sam and Miles proved to be enough to get a dazed Trent inside and his head into the kitchen sink, so that they could wash some of the blood off and get a look at the gash. Bumblebee stayed outside the house, peering through the front windows at the three boys.

"At least it doesn't look too bad," said Sam at last. "I think it just bled a lot."

"Ergh," said Miles. "I've got blood all over my hands. _Trent's_ blood. That's worse than cooties. And I still don't see why I'm helping him after he's spent the past week and a half painting my mailbox every day."

"Your car is a _giant robot,_" said Trent, voice starting to sound a little clearer.

"Uh, yeah," said Sam, resisting the urge to cringe. Trent hadn't ever gotten _too_ violent with him, but there'd been other guys—usually other guys on the football team—who'd given him some pretty bad bruises and, in one memorable case, a streaming bloody nose.

Trent glanced in the direction of Miles' living room and jumped visibly at the yellow-and-metal face and bright turquoise eyes peering in at them. It made Sam feel a little better. At least he wasn't the one freaking out here. Plus, Trent was unlikely to try to kill him with his guardian around.

"That is freaking weird," said Miles fervently. "Even more so than having Trent in my house. Why the hell do you keep on changing the name on our mailbox, anyways?"

"Dare…?" said Trent, sounding a little doubtful. "It was either a dare or a lost bet."

"Oh, I'm glad to know that hours of my time wasted trying to get the paint back _off_ again isn't even worth remembering why you're doing it—"

"I'm sorry…"

This time, both Sam and Miles turned to look at him in amazement.

"Ohhh," said Miles, with a sort of dawning realization. "I must be dreaming. Or hallucinating. I'm either asleep or there's been some sort of horrible accident in third period chemistry, and the fumes killing off my brain cells are supplying me with these weird stories—"

Bumblebee had an expression on his face Sam had come to associate with barely-stifled laughter. "I've sent the details of the attack to Optimus," he called out. Miles and Trent both jumped about a foot in the air, Miles letting out a startled shriek.

"You scream like a girl, Gillon," said Trent, possibly on automatic.

"Fuck you," said Miles, voice still nervously high-pitched. "Out of all the Mission City theories, I'd thought that _someone_ would have it up somewhere. Never seen anything like this, though. Yeah, giant alien robots got mentioned lots, but nothing about them turning into cars. Or my _best friend driving one. _Oh God. I was _in_ him. Why didn't you _tell_ me this, Sam?"

"Well, it was classified…"

"This, like, breaks every single friendship rule we've ever had since we first met."

"You two are so—"

"—Gay?" cut in Sam, voice snapping with anger. "I'm sick of you, Trent, and I'm sure Bumblebee there would be happy to stick you on top of a lamppost for me or something…"

"_What?_ Fuck, no. My uncle's gay. You two are _stupid_."

"Yeah, says the football jock only getting through high school because of hours of tutoring every week…"

"At least I'm _working_ at it. You? You're stupid, _and_ you can't play any sports, _and_ you don't work hard to make up for any of it. I get hours of tutoring, yeah, but I've got a 3.6 GPA."

"Really?" said Sam, honest surprise tingeing his voice.

"Why are we listening to him, Sam?" asked Miles. "He's a jerk. A _sexist_ jerk. Remember what happened with Mikaela? So he's not homophobic. So what? He's still an ass."

"It was a new car," said Trent, sounding somewhat defensive.

"Odds are Mikaela's a better driver than you are," put in Sam. "The car we practice in gives us feedback. Okay, we should probably get going. I don't know what Barricade was doing, attacking us here like this, but there's a meeting being called to talk it over. I guess you guys are involved in this, now… Trent, do you have _any_ criminal record at all? A MySpace? A Facebook?"

"A parking ticket," said the jock numbly. "Two MySpace accounts."

"That means he probably knows who you are by now. I know you're going to want to just go home, but you need to come with us, okay?"

"We're not all going to fit into your car," said Miles.

"Bee's not 'my' anything," said Sam. "Someone's going to have to sit in the back. Fortunately, we're not going too far—it should be less than an hour to get there."

"Since when has that been 'not far?'" yelped Miles.

"Since the place we're going to needs to be big enough for a handful of giant robots to un-transform."

"_Fine_. As long as I don't end up in the back."

oOo

"I can't believe I ended up in the back," moaned Miles as he crawled out of the car. "It figures. Just because Trent's got more muscle than—Good lord."

"Trent, Miles, meet the Autobots."

"I— _God_."

There were a few murmured sounds behind them. Sam recognized it as Bumblebee transforming; Trent and Miles were still too boggled by the robots in front of them too pay much attention.

"Is Jazz okay?" said Bumblebee's scratchy voice from behind them.

"Ask him yourself," said Ratchet with a smug grin as a silver Pontiac Solstice pulled up and transformed.

"That is _awesome_," muttered Miles.

"Jazz!" said Bee happily, stepping forward and over the small cluster of humans to greet him.

"Hey," said Sam with a smile, looking up at the mech. "It's good to see you again."

"How are you doing?" asked Bumblebee, voice a little worried.

"I'm fine. You know me—I ain't gonna let being torn in half by crazy megalomaniacs keep me down for long. How you doin', Sam?"

"Decent. Jazz, these people here are Miles and Trent. Miles is my other best friend, and Trent's Mikaela's ex-boyfriend."

Bumblebee let out a brief burst of spoken Cybertronian that made all the Autobots smirk, except for Optimus, who tried to hide his smile. Sam guessed that what he had said hadn't been very complimentary.

"Miles, Trent, these are Jazz, Optimus Prime's second-in-command; Optimus is their leader, the red and blue one; that's Ratchet, their medic; Ironhide, their weapons specialist—"

His introductions were broken off by a brief warning from Optimus. "Put the cannons _away_, Ironhide."

"—and Bumblebee, who you already know."

"What do you mean, your _other_ best friend?" said Miles, looking a little affronted.

"Sorry, but Bumblebee's my other one."

"_Jesus_," muttered Trent, head thrown back to fully look at the towering shapes around them.

There was a brief period of silence, although Sam had the vague sense that Ironhide and Ratchet were arguing about something over their comm. systems.

"I just called Mikaela," said Bumblebee finally. "She's taking her mother's car here, and should arrive soon."

"Oh! Mikaela! Crap! I can't believe I forgot something like that!"

"At least I never forgot her when she was _my_ girlfriend."

"Shut up, Trent."

oOo

Bec needed groceries. The state of her pantry always seemed to catch her by surprise—_But I just bought this milk! It can't have gone bad already. And I _know_ I had fresh fruit just a few days ago_—but at least having a car would make it easier to get her groceries back to the house. Her bicycle was great for getting around, but it certainly wasn't ideal for carting around bags of food or large loads of library books.

Still, the car had enough going on for it in the 'bad' section that the convenience of not needing to pedal her groceries up the four hills between here and town and then up her gravel driveway was entirely cancelled out, and then some.

First on the list of what was wrong with it? It was a Lamborghini. She hadn't really wanted a car at all, but if she had been forced to get one she had wanted something low-key and serviceable. _This_ was about as far away from that as it was possible to get. Second problem: it was bright golden yellow. That… Basically spoke for itself. What was wrong with a nice, subtle beige? Brownish was a good color for cars. It didn't show the dirt that gravel roads inevitably kicked up. Even black would have been better. Dark blue, maybe. Red probably would have been just as bad, actually, but she supposed it could have been _purple_, God forbid, or pink. Or fuchsia. A bright-yellow Lamborghini was one thing, but a fuchsia Lamborghini was… unimaginable.

"Thank you, Dada, for not getting me a fuchsia Lamborghini," she muttered as she picked the car keys up from where he'd left them on the seats. For a minute she thought she heard the sound of an engine, but it faded before she could really make up her mind as to what it was. It had been faint to start with, anyways. She shrugged. It had probably just been a car going by on the highway.

Before she headed off down her driveway Bec spent a few minutes flipping through radio stations. The only station she could get was playing jazz music—she shrugged. She _was_ a ways away from civilization, she supposed. If she had had her iPod on her—one of last year's birthday presents, a specially customized yellow one—she could have played that, but it wasn't worth going back inside for it. She went with the jazz. She didn't actually _like_ jazz all that much, but she just didn't want to face the silence on her birthday.

The city center (for a given worth of 'city' and 'center') was surprisingly empty, even for a weekday. Bec decided not to speculate—it wasn't empty enough to suggest, say, an epidemic or an alien invasion, so it almost definitely wouldn't involve or interest her—and to take advantage of it by visiting the library before she went to the grocery store.

The library took up longer than she had expected—it always did—and after she got her groceries she took a wrong turn on her way out of town. It wouldn't have been a problem—the road would bring her back to the highway again—but it meant that she ended up passing a nursery she'd never seen before.

And that meant that she had to stop.

Three hours after that, she finally emerged with a flat of assorted seedlings, a new variegated sage to replace the one she'd lost to winter wet and, excitingly, a giant fennel. It was the perfect birthday present to herself—she'd been searching for one for over a year.

The car had driven like a dream , but Bec was finding herself having trouble with the door, all of a sudden. It had opened without a hitch, earlier, but now she was tugging at it—and pulling pretty hard, at that.

"Come _on,_ open!" she growled. "I've got milk in there! It figures. This is just my luck. Maybe if I tried unlocking it again…?"

It didn't work.

Bec glared mutinously at the car, then started to sniffle, eyes getting damp. "Gee, thanks for the birthday present, Dada. It's just what I wanted."

She gave one last vicious tug at the handle, falling backwards when it actually opened. "Whoah!" she gasped from her half-sprawled position on the ground. "It was just sticking, I guess…" she said, doubtfully.

She loaded the plants onto the footwell of a spare seat—she'd have to track down a ratty old blanket to cover the seats with tomorrow, so she wouldn't risk the upholstery too much. She'd stick them in the trunk, but there were groceries back there, and library books, and it was one thing to get dirt on your car seats and another thing entirely to get dirt on library books.

oOo

The squishy had wanted to put pots full of vegetation and wet, dripping _dirt_ inside of him. On his _interior_.

Sideswipe was the only reason the human wasn't still standing in the nursery parking lot, and he wasn't five hundred miles away from her and/or someplace he could shoot something. Preferably Decepticons.

So he'd gone along with it.

_This_ time.

The girl who 'owned' him better not test her luck, though…

oOo

It was fully dark by the time Bec started her drive back home. It made her a little nervous—she didn't like driving at night.

The car behind her—the one that was tailgating her—wasn't helping matters. Speeding up so that she was a little over the speed limit—she tended to drive slowly at night—hadn't helped. Honking hadn't particularly helped, either.

"I can't take much more of this," she muttered, pulling over to the side of the road so the car behind her would just _pass_ her already. Was wanting to be left alone to much to ask for?

The car that had been tailgating her sped up until it was _far_ above the speed limit, shooting past her. The car behind it slowed down, though, and then stopped, parallel to her but in the middle of the road. Bec shivered. It had started to rain, even though it was technically summer, and by now it was pouring; through her fogged-up and rain-covered window the driver's seat had looked empty, the first time she'd glanced at it; a second look had revealed the driver, of course, a blank-faced man with brown hair and a matching moustache.

She was being silly. He probably just wanted directions, or something.

She scooted over until she was in the passenger's seat, rolling down the window, ignoring the rain that blew into her face as she did. At least it meant she didn't have to get out of the car in this rain. "Can I help you?" she called out.

The driver looked at her for a few seconds more, still with that same eerie expression. "No," he said flatly, before rolling up the window and driving away.

"Hmm. I'm going to be glad to get home, I can tell you that. It's the sort of evening that asks for hot cocoa and a bad movie."

Nobody replied, of course. But it was nice to have the sound of a voice talking nonetheless.

oOo

Sunstreaker only relaxed once the girl had pulled into her garage and gone into the house for the night. He hadn't expected to run into Decepticons so soon… Fortunately, it seemed that they hadn't detected him. Much as he hated to admit it, the girl had been useful when it came to that. They would have caught a hologram, no problem, even if he had been able to make one.

Of course, it would have been useless if he also didn't have a powerful damping system to disguise his energy signature. Still, the 'Con that had been tailgating them hadn't followed them, even after they drove past where it'd hidden itself along the road. It'd headed off in the opposite direction after they'd passed it, actually.

So it looked like he was safe for another day. _They_ were safe for another day, because if he was recognized, odds were they'd double their search for Sides.

In the meantime, he wished he could wash himself off. The organic's road had turned to watery slop in the rain, and he was _covered_ with it.

--End Chapter 1--


	2. Chapter 2

**Getting To Know You  
****Chapter Two  
**By Dreaming of Everything

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Transformers in any way, shape or form.

**Author's Notes**: Sorry for the hideous, hideous wait for this chapter. To make up for it, it is 28 pages long—the equivalent of five or six or so normal-sized chapters.

Chapter 3 hopefully won't take so long. Also, I've added at least one more chapter to the outline for this story—it'll probably be four or five chapters long. Four is the minimum.

Many, many thanks to my incredible beta, **mmouse15**! I owe her like you would not believe.

...and, um, I know that I haven't gotten my review replies out, and I am a horrible, horrible person for that, but I will soon. It's just, I have no will to do anything right now... Damn you, winter daylight hours.

oOoOoOo

Judy Witwicky had learned to expect surprises from her son, even before he'd made them drive out to the middle-of-nowhere with him when she (and Ron, of course) had demanded an explanation for what had happened with Sector Seven, and his car had turned into a 20-something-foot-tall robot. And that had been _before_ she'd been introduced to the other Autobots.

They still made her a bit skittish, really, but she was learning to adjust. She went up to the lookout with Sam, every once in a while, now, and every so often some sort of vehicle would turn up in her driveway and ask to talk to her son. And, of course, there was Bumblebee. Really, she was adapting remarkably well, she thought.

But it was still unusual to have her son come home, looking distinctly bedraggled, with a shell-shocked Miles and a stranger, probably about the age of the other two boys, still oozing a slow trickle of blood from his head, with a probably-concerned Bumblebee with them. (She assumed concern, at least, but it was awfully hard to read emotions, when it came to the Transformers. Especially when they weren't transformed—having faces, of sorts, helped with that sort of thing.)

"Oh, my God," she said, horrified. "Sam? What happened?"

"Barricade," said Sam with a wince. "And, uh, this is Trent. He needs someplace safe to stay for a while. Miles, too—is that okay?"

"Do you know him?" Judy said doubtfully—being attacked by giant robots was one thing, but having a total stranger in his late teens stay with them for an unspecified period of time was entirely another.

"We're in school together," said Sam, slightly resentfully. "And he's Mikaela's ex-boyfriend."

Bumblebee made a slight chirping noise she couldn't interpret. Sam apparently could, though—he looked over with one eyebrow raised expressively. "Yeah, whatever, it's hilarious," he muttered. The two other boys looked shell-shocked, and Judy's mothering instincts took over.

"Come in, you two," she said, guiding Miles through the door with a firm, if caring, grip.

"Thanks, Judy," said Miles, sounding incredibly relieved. Judy smiled. Miles had always been such a nice, polite boy. She looked considerably less indulgently at the other—she had her suspicions about how he'd treated Sam at school, and anyone who would break up with a nice young lady like Mikaela—or be dumped by her—_well_. She was going to reserve judgment for now.

"Thank you, Mrs. Wickity," echoed Trent. She glared at him, just slightly.

"Witwicky," she said, voice frosty.

He blushed bright red and muttered an apology, and she was somewhat mollified. "Come in," she said at last, softening slightly. "I want to look at that cut. Don't you boys ever think? What one earth were you _doing_, not dealing with that?"

oOo

She'd double-checked the cut and assured herself that everything was fine (including doing a check for signs of a concussion; she'd _known_ that first-aid class had been a good idea!) and then forced mugs of hot cocoa on all the boys, and left them at the kitchen table along with a plate of muffins to talk things over, while _she_ went and forced details—accurate details, not ones that had been softened for her sake—out of her son's car.

Bumblebee remained inert and unresponsive as she approached, so she rapped forcefully on his hood with two knuckles, stance firm.

"What happened?" she demanded. She also didn't miss how the car shifted, just slightly, on his wheels.

"Barricade attacked," he said at last, voice still with that faint rasp.

"Yes, I heard," she said, tone making it clear that she expected more of an answer and that it had better be damn convincing.

"…Which means that other Decepticons are probably on their way," he finished reluctantly. "He has no reason to make such an obvious offensive move without backup."

Judy's lips thinned. "I _see,_" she said. "Nice of you to tell me."

He didn't respond.

"And I suppose that's part of the reason why I have two more teenage boys staying at my house right now? So you can watch over them? What about Mikaela?"

"With Ratchet," Bumblebee said. "Along with two others connected to the Autobots. Ironhide is with the Lennoxes."

"And you're with us. I see. Still, this my _son's_ life you're dealing with—and mine, too. I have a right to know."

There was another long minute of silence, this time guilty.

"I'll talk to you later," Judy said at last, and turned to go.

oOo

Sunstreaker had quickly discovered that his human timed her day by the solar cycles. More so than other humans. She got up with the sun, and watered her garden first thing in the morning. After that she ate breakfast—which was kind of nasty, to put it bluntly, and that wasn't even touching on how inefficient it was as an energy-producing process—and then she moved outside into the first puddle of sunshine on the lawn. She moved with that patch of light until about noon, lying sprawled with her school books on the ground in front of her. She ate again, then worked in her garden, mostly weeding. She took a short walk—he assumed; she was beyond his immediate sensor range, and he didn't care enough to be curious—then prepared and ate another meal. After dinner she did heavier work in the garden, or read.

Noticeably absent from her daily routine was anything involving driving or cars in any way, shape or form—including washing, waxing or in any way caring for Sunstreaker.

On occasion, though, something would disrupt the otherwise-identical days. Sadly, it was never cleaning him.

oOo

Bec woke up with a heavy heart, and felt guilty about it, which only made things worse.

"Mother's coming," she told her tree peony as she watered it, feeling a little silly while she did it. Oh well. Most people talked to their pets, after all, and some people talked to their cars. Now _there_ was something she didn't understand.

"At least the clothes she brings me are always beautiful," she told the tomatoes, tucked in-between the house and the driveway, where they got the most consistent sun and good heat—not that that meant much. Tomatoes were something of a long shot in her yard.

Sunstreaker was torn between being simply baffled and being bemused. The crazy organic appeared to be talking to her plants. It was disturbingly nice to hear a voice again, though, he had to admit that, even if it wasn't Cybertronian. Bec seemed content to pass her days in silence, except for the occasional moment of music—usually played quietly, and faint enough that he had to strain his sensors to pick it up. And the local information network just wasn't holding his interest. Big surprise there.

"Not that I wear them," continued the girl, after a long moment. Sunstreaker twitched slightly—thankfully, the organic had her back turned to him. Was she _still_ on about that? And there was no point to talking to something that wasn't going to talk back.

There was the sound of a car coming up the driveway. Bec sighed, seeming to deflate even as she steeled herself.

"Mother!" she said, voice torn between happiness, relief and hidden misery.

"Rebecca!" her mother called back, sweeping forward to wrap her daughter up in her long arms. The smell of her perfume—jasmine, and very expensive—wrapped around her daughter, the memories of her childhood it brought visceral enough to make Bec's eyes prickle with tears.

"How are you doing?" said her mother, pushing her back for a minute to look her over with a critical eye. "Still dressing like you always do, it looks."

"I don't dress that badly, really, Mom," said Bec.

"Yes, you do," her mother said firmly. "I don't know where you get it from—certainly not from me, but your father always takes the time to look his best as well. It's a mystery."

"How was Italy?"

"Oh, you know how it is—I was too busy to really see anything. I did have dinner at the most fabulous little restaurant, though. Truly incredible. I'll be having the annual divorce dinner in Venice—all the usual crew's coming, of course, except for Maria, she can't make it—as a change of pace, and I'll be sure to get everyone there at some point. It'll be quite the feather in my cap—it hasn't been discovered yet. You should come, you know—the trip would be worth the bother of the flight by itself. I know we're all old, but you're even more single than the rest of us, and we have a pretty good time despite our age."

"Mom, I can't afford to fly out to Italy for dinner," said Bec with a soft smile, one that had wanted to be outraged but was too used to it for that, anymore.

"Oh, I'd pay, of course! What were you _thinking?_ Don't let that stop you! Even if I wouldn't, some of the other women would, of course—you're another child to half of them, you know, and there's been some talk about getting some new blood in, to liven things up."

"I'm sure you've already gotten me a very nice present," said Bec. "And really, I'm happiest here. My classes take up a lot of time; it's a very important point, and I really can't afford to miss anything."

"If you're sure," said her mother doubtfully. "But you don't need to make excuses, you know. If you don't want to go, just say so. I'll listen."

_Of course you would_, thought Bec, _just like you always do,_ but she didn't say anything aloud.

"Do you want anything to drink or eat?" she said instead.

"Oh, no, thank you," her mother said immediately. "I had something on the drive here. Almost spilled soda on the inside of my new car while I was at it… I really shouldn't eat and drive, I know, but I'm always in such a hurry. Oh! The car's not brand new, anymore, but I forget that you haven't seen it yet! Really, things would be so much easier if you lived a little closer. Are you sure you're happy here?"

"Yes, Mom, it's perfect for me out here. I love it." Bec stopped herself before she continued on to say 'I'm happier than I've been since my twelfth birthday.'

"Well, then, I suppose I can't convince you otherwise. You've always kept your own council, really—you were a very difficult child, when it came to some things. Much better than your siblings in other ways, of course—I remember the five years I spent struggling to get Alise to do her homework, and that was with the tutor, the nanny and her teachers. But the car! I had it done custom—they don't make anything this nice normally without making it far too flashy or unfeminine. The white's terrible to keep clean, of course, especially the interior—I'm going to have to switch to entirely clear drinks, really—but I really like how the gold detailing came out."

"It's beautiful," said Bec, honestly. It really was pretty.

"And this is the birthday present from your father?" her mother said, turning to investigate the yellow monstrosity still parked in her driveway. "I'm not sure it suits you. Yellow's a little—obvious. You know. And the build's a little masculine—I wouldn't have chosen it for a young lady, certainly. Something between what I've got and this, really—a little flirty, a little fun, a college car."

Bec bit back a slightly bitter laugh. It took a special sort of person to think that a car with a price tag equivalent to the price of a modest house or higher was suitable for college students. "You know Dada," she said. "It was very generous of him."

"Lord knows I know your father, yes," said her mother, face expressive. "There's a reason we divorced."

"Please, though, come inside," said Bec. "Or around the back—there's a little patio, shady and out of the sun. You're dressed for cooler weather than this, I think. I'll get us some lemonade."

"Sugar-free, please," her mother said automatically.

Bec shook her head. "I'm sorry," she said, voice so soft and faint it was hard to hear. "I made it myself, this morning…"

"It's fine," her mother said. "I'll just have some water."

"Alright," said Bec, voice a little stronger but still quiet. "Go around here, just follow the path—there's a little table set up."

She walked out of the back door of the house a few minutes later, carrying two glasses of water, her mother's with ice and a little bit of lemon, her own plain. "Oh, thank you," her mother said. "I'm exhausted, really—the past few weeks have been hell at work, and I don't do anything but even at the best of the times." Bec made a wordless noise of agreement, sipping at her own glass. It was silent for a while, with only the drone of cicadas off in the distance and the rustle of the slight breeze through the tree leaves.

"Oh, your presents!" her mother said at last. "I've forgotten them out in the car. Would you be a dear and go get it for me? I'd do it myself, but I'm a wreck—still jet-lagged and without enough sleep for other reasons on top of that, and over-worked, like I was telling you—"

"Of course," said Bec, rising hurriedly. "I'd love to. I'll be right back, okay?"

Sunstreaker was fuming. The nerve of the squishy little organic—yellow was a fine color. A _great_ color, even, and his own shade was particularly nice. There was nothing obvious about it. He didn't care about the masculinity comments—that didn't matter, really, stupid human issues—but the nerve of the woman! And her own car was hardly any better—plain white, and those ridiculous bits of gold. Some sort of reddish wood on the dashboard—and she had the nerve to insult _his_ color.

The other one—the younger one, the child, not the thing that had insulted him—came hurrying past, wiping at roughly at tears with the back of one of her hands. "It's stupid to cry," she muttered fiercely to herself. "It's not you. It's her. She just doesn't mean to."

…She was kind of weird, was Sunstreaker's firm opinion. She certainly didn't match normal human behaviors most of the time, from what he could tell, and she was incredibly solitary for a supposedly communal species. She certainly had a non-traditional (and abnormal) relationship with her progenitors, but even that was atypical in how she went about it—there were very few similarities to typically bad familial relationships, from what his research had shown. Not that he'd done much—it was kind of boring, and he really didn't care all that much. He was only here for a while—for longer than he'd hoped for, by now, but still—and then he would leave the organic. She'd probably assume 'her' car had been stolen, collect the insurance and move on. It wasn't like she cared a lot, certainly.

"Mom was right about _this_ thing, at least," muttered the still-slightly-choked-up Bec as she roughly brushed past the car on her way back inside. Sunstreaker resisted the urge to atomize her.

He was going to kill Sideswipe when he caught back up with him, for making him go through this.

Bec walked back inside with the unnervingly large stack of boxes hesitantly. "This is them?" she asked hesitantly as she walked towards her mother, depositing her load on the small table.

"Yes, that's them—Oh! Oh no—no, wait, never mind. I'd thought I'd lost one, but it's here, in my purse. It's last, though—start with this one, here, the one with the green bow."

Carefully, Bec unwrapped the box, setting aside the paper, which was heavy and cream-colored with small gilt roses scattered over the surface, and the heavy green ribbon that had been wrapped around it. Her mother shook her head at the paper, but the ribbon, Bec knew, was always silk on her mother's presents, and really an extra gift—one she actually used, every now and then. She probably had thirty of the things, in a whole rainbow of colors, all stuffed into a box next to her dresser. They made wonderful bookmarks.

"This is hardly a gift, really," said her mother as she held up the dress the box had contained, a gorgeous thing in pale rose pink and with green, gold and pink jewelry to match. "It's for Susan's wedding this fall, you know—you have to attend, really, and I know you probably don't have a thing to wear. There's tickets in the purse, so you can't complain about cost—I've got a hotel in Maui booked for you to go along with it, and I've double-checked with your school, so I _know_ you don't have classes.

"Thank you, Mom," said Bec.

"And I've given you a week before the wedding, so you can have a nice little vacation! You work too hard, you know—always studying. Studiousness has its place, certainly you don't want to end up like your sister, but it can't be good for you. You need to relax more! I won't be able to make your vacation or the wedding, sadly—Susan's heartbroken, and I am as well, you know how long we've known each other—or it would have been a real present, some mother-daughter time."

"It's too bad I won't be able to spend it with you," said Bec quietly, smiling at her mother just slightly.

"I know—I really am going to have to retire soon. This schedule's killing me, and my doctor backs me up when I say that. Open the pale blue one next, then the dark blue, then the violet."

The box with the pale-blue ribbon was another dress, this one light and summery, and the same color as the ribbon. "I thought about white," said her mother, "since it's more the current fashion, and would look very cute on you, but I know what a disaster you are in white clothing." The dark blue one was a pair of pants, dark blue to almost black jeans, with flowers embroidered on them, a garden running riot over almost all the exposed fabric.

"Oh," breathed Bec, enchanted. "They're beautiful!" She bent to look more closely at a few details—a lily, two irises, a spray of orchids. It was even accurate, the flowers matching their real-life counterparts almost perfectly.

Her mother smiled, a real smile, slow and deep. "I'm glad you like them," she said. "They'd look wonderful with a plain white shirt, something breezy and thin, and a pair of white sandals. You still have that pair I gave you for Christmas a year ago, right?"

"Yes," said Bec, and she did—she kept everything her mother gave her, even if she usually kept it in the attic. The clothes were always beautiful, but nothing she could wear, like these jeans—they didn't suit her, and she had nowhere to wear them _to_. It wasn't like she even really cared what she looked like. With these she might just end up hanging them on the wall, just for their sheer decorative value.

The third box was, in her mother's words, "Party clothes—something suitable for a girl your age. You're 21, now, Rebecca! You should be going out clubbing, or at least to parties. Small ones, even. _Something_. It's just not healthy to stay home so much, you should go out, find some friends, be a little wild while you still have the chance!"

Bec doubted that she'd have an urgent need for tight black leather pants and a dark plum purple silk shirt that showed as much as it concealed—and implied a lot more—in the next year or so, but she wasn't going to argue with her mother. It wasn't something that good girls did.

oOo

The end of the visit had finally come—her mother had gotten a call she "absolutely couldn't ignore, I'm so sorry, Rebecca," and said her good-byes. Bec had accompanied her to her car door.

She sat down on the grass with a heavy sigh, once her mother's car had passed out of sight, flipping the small box her mother had slipped her as she'd gotten into her car through her fingers. It was covered seamlessly with pale blue silk and not even big enough to cover her palm, with a delicate silver clasp.

With a sigh she slipped it open, wincing at the stark comparison between her own hands (calloused and heavy, indelicate, the skin slightly chapped and one palm with a quarter-sized scab of dirt ground into sap she'd been unable to get off; usually there was dirt under the nails, from weeding with her hands and without gloves, although she'd cleaned them, for her mother) and the box.

She looked at the delicate silver-and-pearl pendant it contained with incomprehension for a long second.

"Oh," she said, and she started crying.

It was her mother's, but it had been her grandmother's before that, and her great-grandmother's first. She'd been given it by her husband, who'd been moderately wealthy, before the Great Depression. It had been passed on through the women in her family since he'd given it to her—Bec had assumed that her older sister, Alise, had been given it, either for some birthday or for her wedding a year ago.

She had never imagined that it would end up being hers. She didn't think that she'd ever been particularly close to her mother. Hell, she hadn't imagined that her mother would ever give her a present that meant something to _both_ of them.

oOo

Oh, Primus. The crazy organic was at it again. Now she was crying again—and why did they (the humans) choose such a fragging _weird_—if reasonably useful—physical response to irritated eyes as a way to express emotion?

oOo

Mikaela had had the vague, paranoid sense that she was being followed all day. It was starting to irk her. Not to mention make her really, _really_ jumpy—especially considering that she had reason to be worried. More so than ordinary people, at least.

"Is something wrong?" her friend, Malissa, asked at last, looking slightly worried. "You've been really preoccupied all day. Boy trouble? I know I'd be looking around, considering what you've got, but it can be hard to dump the puppy-dogs, I know. Still, don't feel obligated just because you were a little desperate after that whole thing with Trent—"

"No, it's not that!" said Mikaela quickly, more than a little annoyed by the jabs at Sam. "Everything's great. I'm just a little tired—should have gone to bed earlier last night. You know how it is. But Sam's incredible. Everything except the beefy arms, I'm serious, and he's not worthless when it comes to muscle." Especially considering the extra work he'd started putting in—after saving the world, working out had gained some importance. "But he's wonderful. A romantic, sensitive, pays attention to me, utterly devoted—it's the first time I've really never been worried that he'll cheat around on me. Great car, too." Hah—that was the least of it. "Brave. He's got an incredible personality."

"He sounds like a real knight in shining armor," Malissa said doubtfully.

_Yes, something like that,_ thought Mikaela, although she didn't say anything aloud. _Although knights usually only save the maiden, and not the world._

Still. She didn't like this, at all. And after everything that had happened, she had the right to be a little paranoid.

"But you look kind of cold, Malissa. Do you want my jacket? I'm wearing long sleeves, at least, and it's pretty breezy out—that always cools things down, even with the sun."

"Oh, thank you! I need to get my fall shopping done—or started, really. It's horrible, especially now the weather's cooling down."

"Me, too, really—I'm wearing what I have left over from last winter. This is all I can still wear, really. Want to go with me some time? You know how I feel about shopping alone."

"Oh, _I_ know. It's funny, especially with how great your taste is, even without someone else's input."

"Still, I like it more—Oh, hey, there's that little park! I'm going to pop over for a quick second to grab a soda, okay? I'm absolutely parched. I'll catch up with you in just a sec, okay?"

"Oh, um—sure!"

"Okay! If I don't find you, we'll meet at the café, okay? It's really not all that far, now.

Mikaela turned right and sped up as soon as Malissa was out of sight. Smiling grimly, she swiftly walked the two blocks that led her to the far edge of the postage-stamp of a park. From there she cut through it, following the most heavily garden- and tree-lined path for the near-invisibility it gave her from other paths, the sidewalks and the roads.

She headed back for the main street after she came back out on the other side, keeping an eye out as she walked swiftly back towards the road for anything that looked suspicious. As she turned back off the side road she'd taken back, stopping to wait for the street light to change, she nervously followed the flow of cars and people with searching eyes.

Mikaela relaxed as her eye caught on the familiar form of a green emergency vehicle a little ways ahead of her on the road, stalled in traffic. She'd _known_ she was being followed. Quickly glancing at the traffic backed up past the small side street she was on, she took her chances and jogged quickly across, continuing up the road. She waved slightly as she passed Ratchet, then turned down a small alley to wait.

She didn't wait long, the vehicle pulling in shortly after she did.

"What do you want?" she hissed.

"Optimus has ordered that all the humans closely involved with the Autobots be put under guard," he replied. "Bumblebee's with Miles, Trent and Sam, and the Lennoxes are with Ironhide. The president and Secretary Keller are already well-protected. That leaves you, Maggie and Glen. I've been assigned to you three, for now."

"Gee, thanks for telling me," Mikaela said grumpily. "Especially considering that you were _following_ me. Now, if you don't mind too much, I'm heading back to meet up with Malissa. She's waiting for me." She paused for a brief second, forehead crinkled with thought and a slight frown. "…and where are Glen and Maggie, if you're watching them, too?"

"They'll meet you at the café," said Ratchet, sounding amused. "I believe Glen's already waiting for you there." Mikaela groaned.

"I am far too predictable, aren't I," she said, mostly to herself. She needed to find new places to hang out with friends.

"Yes," said Ratchet helpfully.

"…And I suppose you're going to want to pick me up after I'm done," she finished.

"Yes."

"Despite the fact that I will be going with Glen and Maggie, presumably."

"Yes."

"And the fact that it will look totally suspicious to have the three of us—all decidedly civilian—get into an emergency vehicle."

"Yes."

"…_Right_. You know, that whole 'in disguise' thing would work better if you actually had us act like things were normal. I'm going to go find Malissa and explain to her why I suddenly need to leave, why two people I'm presumably friends with suddenly showed up and why I'm going with them, why I don't have a soda and why I'm going to be going in an emergency hummer."

Ratchet snickered.

oOo

"Where's your soda?" Malissa asked, looking confused, as Mikaela jogged back up to meet her.

"I forgot my wallet was in my jacket pocket," she said sheepishly.

"Oh! I'm so sorry! I should have thought of it—"

"No, no, it's not your fault! It's mine, if anyone's. I should have remembered that you need money if you want to use a vending machine." Well, unless it was the vending-machine Transformer still running around. Then you might get a soda, but you might not, and it would be free if you did. If it _really_ didn't like you, it ate your money, but there had been _words_ exchanged, and it didn't go after people's hands anymore.

"Well, you can order a soda here, at least."

"Yeah," Mikaela agreed. Even though she really wasn't all that thirsty.

She ordered a drink anyways, though, and pushed the other looming issues away—what to do with who she was meeting and what was going on—in favor of some girl talk. Sometimes it was nice to just pretend she was a perfectly ordinary teenage girl. She was glad she'd talked Ratchet into giving her a little more time.

oOo

Fortunately, Mikaela had had the luck to be seated facing in the direction Maggie had come from. It gave her a little time to switch gears—prepare herself, so to speak.

"Hey, Mikaela!" Maggie called out as she got a bit closer.

"Maggie!" Mikaela said, her happiness genuine as she rose to greet her, the two women hugging each other. The humans tied to the Autobots tended to be close to each other. "Maggie, this is Malissa—we got to school with each other. We've probably been best friends since, oh, the sixth grade, right?" Best friend barring Sam (who was probably in his own category, being her boyfriend) and Bumblebee. Malissa nodded her agreement the statement—it had, indeed, been the sixth grade. "Malissa, this is Maggie—I'm not entirely sure how we met. It was one of those things were we just ran into each other…"

Well, something like that.

"Nice to meet you," said Malissa politely.

"Nice to meet you, too! And I love that skirt you're wearing. A little cold for it, though…"

Malissa nodded ruefully. "I had to borrow Mikaela's jacket, earlier," she said, blushing just slightly.

"Well, I'm actually here to meet another friend of mine—that's him over there, the one with the laptop—so I'll talk to you later, okay, Mikaela? And it was nice to meet you, Malissa—maybe the three of us could go shopping sometime? I know how you feel about shopping alone, Mikaela, and it's been a while since I've had a good girl-friends day. You know how it is, with work and everything, and it's harder—I'm still making friends here, and learning to fit in."

"That sounds nice," said Malissa, with a slightly shy smile. "I know how hard it can be to be new to a place—and that was just moving here from the East Coast, let alone another country! –you _are_ Australian, right? Your accent is, but you just can't tell, sometimes…"

"No, I am. And I'll get in touch with Mikaela some time soon! Looks like you could use some warmer clothes, certainly—I know how it is, I moved from Australia to New York and then to here, and I thought I would freeze that first winter. Bye! Bye, Mikaela!"

"I'll see you later, Maggie," said Mikaela with a bright smile, relieved. At least things had been somewhat arranged _subtly._

Almost immediately after Maggie left, Malissa got a text message that made her frown deeply at the screen. "I've got to go," she said to Mikaela, voice clearly upset. "Boyfriend troubles." Mikaela sighed. Malissa was _always_ having boyfriend troubles of one sort or another.

"Okay, then. I'll see you later, okay? And I'd walk back to the bus station with you, but I want to finish my drink… I'm sorry."

"No, no, I understand! It's something I should probably do on my own, anyways. I'll call, okay?"

"Okay! Bye!"

Mikaela sat for a few minutes longer, watching her friend walk off. Finally, with a sigh, she stood and walked over to the two hackers currently arguing heatedly—if quietly—over something on Glen's laptop screen, leaving her now-empty cup behind.

It was time to face reality again.

"Hey," she said by way of greeting, slipping into a seat across from the two computer experts. "How are you doing?"

"A little spooked," said Maggie honestly, "but I'll live. More about that later, okay?"

"I'd be a lot better if this stupid little section of code would just _work right…_" muttered Glen. Maggie rolled her eyes. Mikaela sensed that there was a history here, and wisely held her tongue. Not that she had the expertise to add anything to the conversation.

She waited for a few more minutes while Glen continued to tap furiously at his laptop, making continually more frustrated comments and sounds as he continued, Maggie watching him over his shoulder.

"…Can't you do this just as well with—somewhere else?" said Mikaela finally. Glen looked up, half-startled, as if he'd forgotten she was there at all.

"Okay," said Maggie with a sigh, standing up and stretching out her stiff shoulders—she'd been twisted into an awkward position to see the screen.

"Thanks," said Mikaela. Watching the two of them really wasn't all that interesting. "Where're we meeting up?"

"That little park a few blocks away. R—He said he had something he needed to check up on over there anyways." It was hard to remember to take Ratchet's name—or the names of any of the Autobots, really—out of the conversation when they were talking in public. It was another one of those little paranoid practices they all indulged in—probably useless, but it made them all feel much better.

Together, the three of them stood up and headed out of the restaurant, back the way Mikaela had come. They were quiet as they walked—it wasn't that they didn't have anything to say, but that they didn't want to risk the wrong thing being overheard. Some things were difficult to explain, and the Autobots were one of them. God knew that the government had had trouble shushing up the Mission City incident.

Ratchet was waiting for them, parked along the fringes of the small square of trees, grass and benches. Mikaela tried not to think about how odd it looked as she hauled herself into him, scooting over so Glen could sit besides her. Maggie took shotgun. Ratchet drove, hologram in place.

"Are you really worried enough that you're putting a full watch on everybody connected to the Autobots?" said Mikaela immediately.

"Yes," said Ratchet. "Barricade's not a real believer in the Decepticon cause so much as he's brutal, cold and calculating, and being a 'Con lets him revel in that. He's not going to initiate an attack when he knows it's a hopeless situation—above all, the little rat's going to try to save his own sorry hide. No, if he's going after Bumblebee and Sam, out of revenge or for some other purpose, he knows he has a good chance of succeeding. And that means that he knows something we don't."

oOo

Sunstreaker was close to screaming. Bec was mere feet away from him, oblivious.

He was _covered_ in dried, caked-on mud. _Covered_. The roads weren't necessarily good ones, here, and there'd been a lot of rain this summer. There was dust from the drier gravel road that served as Bec's driveway, dulling his paint and spreading in a thin film over his windshield. There were bits of organic detritus caught in little crooks and crannies, picked up from driving tiny, overgrown backcountry roads in yet another obsessive search for some muddy, undergrown bit of greenery indistinguishable from seventy other little bits of dirty, dripping foliage, yet somehow of great importance to Rebecca. There were bits of chopped grass covering one side of him, from where the wind had caught Bec's lawn trimmings as she emptied them out over a new garden bed. Underneath the grass was sawdust, the bottom layer in the same patch of new garden. (1)

He was _filthy_. This was disgusting. No sentient being should have to live like this. He was positively half-crazed with the need to feel _clean_ again. Didn't normal humans wash their cars? The girl's mother certainly did—her own car, ugly as it had been, had had only the slightest layer of dust from the road. Other cars he'd seen had been properly washed. Research seemed to indicate that it was a normal thing to do—a nice, long summer Sunday washing the car, and all that.

But no. Rebecca was spending the day working in the garden. Right now she was feet away from Sunstreaker—_feet_, not even his full body length, even untransformed—with her hose, a stream of clear water pouring out of it, catching the light. She was showing no signs of turning it on him.

Earlier in the day she'd taken a potted plant out of her house and dusted it. _Dusted_ it. She cleaned her plants—by hand—but she wouldn't even bother to take the time to get her car to a carwash. The smug plant was still sitting outside, leaves shining in the sunlight. Sunstreaker was fuming.

A planet full of billions of the things, and he got _this_ human.

oOo

Sam awoke muzzily and wondered why his bathroom shower was running.

_Oh yeah_, he thought. _Miles and Trent. Lord, that could be Trent. In _my_ shower. In my _shower

He felt unclean, all of a sudden. Although he didn't think his mother would take kindly to a request that she sanitize his bathroom because Trent had been using it. Not that she had seemed particularly fond of the other teen, really.

Sam rolled back over and started drifting back to sleep. Wake up early and seize the day and that whole thing, but a day where he was babysitting Trent was not a day he wanted, particularly. Maybe if he was lucky Trent would do something obnoxious and Bumblebee would step on him.

He was awakened by a car horn. Sam groaned loudly. Damn Bee for getting it in his head that Sam needed an alarm clock—one he couldn't hit the snooze button on, or turn off, or set for a time he chose himself.

"Mmmph," said Miles' voice next to him, and up. He'd gotten the bed—his mother had raised him right, according to her; according to Sam, it meant that he felt guilty sleeping in his own bed when he had a friend over, even when it was Miles, as it almost always was, and Trent certainly wasn't going to get his bed—and the other two teens had been set up with air mattresses on the floor of Sam's room. He hadn't liked having Trent in his room at all, but sticking him in the living room wouldn't have been feasible, considering how early he'd gone to bed, and the other boy had almost looked unhappy about spending the night alone—Sam chalked it up to not being used to seeing actual expressions on his face and, because of that, misreading him. His mom had said it was the shock wearing off that was making him so tired. He was tempted to think that it was all some sort of devious plot on Trent's part.

Sam stumbled to his feet and got to his window. "Shut up, Bee!" he hissed out of it as he opened it enough to stick out his head. The neighbors didn't appreciate car horns at nine o'clock in the morning—although it _was_ a Monday, which helped. Most of them had probably left for work already, or were at least awake.

He turned around to find Miles staring at him. "This is so weird," his friend said, the sheer oddness of the situation clearing the sleepiness from his voice.

There was a brief pause. Trent materialized out of the bathroom, still slightly damp and wearing a towel. "Uh, good morning," he said. Sam nearly choked on his surprise.

"Morning," said Miles in return, automatically. As the word left his lips a look of utter shock and incomprehension crossed his face. He covered his eyes with one expressive hand. "It's too early for this." Sam was inclined to agree.

"—I need clothes," said Trent, looking distinctly uncomfortable. Sam sighed.

"Both of you should probably tell your parents where you are," he said. "And get some clothes and stuff, yeah."

Neither of the teens really reacted to the reminder that neither of their guardians knew where they were. "My dad doesn't really care much what I do," said Trent, shrugging a little. "I'll just say I was at a party with some friends and it got late so I crashed there, and he'll think I got drunk and passed out, or just didn't want to come home to him and my mom, or I got lucky, and he'll ignore it, maybe wink at me a few times and smirk. I'll make up some other stupid excuse about why I'm not coming home later."

"Mom's been pulling long shifts, and crashing at a friend's house," Miles said. "And Dad's still in China, won't be back until the end of the month or later. She probably won't even notice until she gets home on Thursday, and she's fine if I'm with you. Of course, she doesn't know about your car. That probably helps with her thinking you're a good, responsible kid."

"Hey," said Sam. "I can be a good, responsible kid even with Bumblebee around."

"Bumblebee's a weird name for a giant transforming robot who's also a car," said Miles vaguely.

"I wouldn't tell him that," said Sam. "But he's great, really. I wanted to introduce you to him, but I never knew how to do it. You should spend some time with him, get to know him—you probably didn't get a chance to get a real opinion, yesterday."

The other two looked at him, a little dumbfounded. Trent shifted awkwardly, still holding up his towel with one hand.

"You can wear yesterday's clothes again, can't you?" demanded Sam, a little annoyed.

"I think your mom took them to wash," he said, sounding uncomfortably honest, his voice slightly anxious and his words blurted. It wasn't a side of him Sam saw at school. "They were covered in blood."

Miles sighed. "I'd believe that Judy did that. Probably took mine, too, while she was at it. Do you still have that spare set I left here?"

"Yeah. But I dunno about you, Trent—my clothes aren't going to fit." Because Trent was built like, well, a football player, and Sam wasn't. Painfully so.

Trent fidgeted. There was a knock on the door.

"Are you up?" asked Judy through the door. "I heard the shower, and Bumblebee. Trent, I have some sweats for you that should fit—your own clothes are still in the wash, I had to soak them overnight to get the blood out. I'll leave them outside the door. Breakfast will be on the table in ten or fifteen minutes—don't let it get cold!"

There was the sound of footsteps walking away from the door. Slowly, Trent opened it and picked up the small pile of neatly-folded clothes that had been left.

"Your mom's great," he said, and he sounded like he honestly meant it.

"Huh?" said Sam. He hadn't really thought about it…

"Yeah," said Miles fervently. "You're so lucky. I can't believe I just agreed with Trent."

Sam waited for a threat, or at least a belligerent comment, but there wasn't one.

"I'm going to go help my mom with breakfast," he said, after a long, awkward pause, and beat a hasty retreat for the door.

He was setting the table when Trent came downstairs, still as cowed and silent as he'd been before.

"Can I help, Mrs. Witwicky?" he said, fidgeting. He looked half-dressed in the ill-fitting sweatsuit she'd found him.

"There's no need for you to do anything," she said instantly, shooing him in the direction of the table. "And please, call me Judy. It's what Miles has always called me, certainly, and most of Sam's other friends have called me 'Sam's Mom' or just avoided talking to me at all. I hope you boys are hungry."

"You always cook too much," said Sam.

"Well, you're growing boys," said Judy, as if that explained everything. "And there's three of you—that's a good, number, considering how you can eat. I've also put together a picnic for you so you can head out to the lookout later. I know you and Miles will probably have all sorts of questions, Trent."

"We don't all fit into Bee," said Sam. "I mean, we _can,_ but it leaves someone crouching in the back."

"That's okay," said Judy brightly. "Today's Jazz's day off, and he said he was planning on stopping by. You can all go then."

"—how do you even end up knowing these things?" said Sam, utterly befuddled, looking at his mother with amazement and confusion.

"A mother has her secrets, dear. You look a little confused, Trent; is everything okay?"

"More of them…?" said Trent.

"Well, yes," said Judy.

"I told you about it yesterday, remember?" said Sam, considerably less charitably.

"But—" began Trent, voice sounding almost helpless.

"It's kind of overwhelming," said Miles, slipping into his usual seat at the table. "Although I also can't get over how _unbelievably cool_ this all is."

Trent stared with confusion and disbelief at Miles. He wasn't over the shock enough yet to move onto amazement.

"You'll like Jazz," continued Judy, as if nobody had spoken. "He's nice. Very personable, very friendly."

"Where did you even get the time to meet him?" said Sam, still lost. "He's been dead!"

"What?" said Miles.

"He got ripped in half by Megatron—that's the leader of the Decepticons, who're the bad guys—and then reanimated using this leftover bit of the Allspark."

Miles' eyes went wide. "Your life is so weird. I can't believe you didn't tell me this!"

"Well, how would you've reacted if I just told you?"

Miles had to concede the point.

"Here's breakfast," said Judy cheerfully, sliding two full plates onto the table, one in front of each of the two guests, and then Sam's last. She took her own breakfast, much smaller than the others', to her own spot in the breakfast nook along with the newspaper, leaving the main table for the boys. She liked to read the news in the morning, keep up on world events, and that just wasn't something you could do with guests at the table, and she figured they'd like a little privacy, while they figured out what they were doing for the day. Especially considering how she tended to make Sam's friends nervous.

"So, _would_ you be okay with meeting Jazz and Bumblebee today? For better or for worse, you're in on the secret now, and Barricade, at least, knows who you are. It would be good for you to get to know the Autobots, or at least get to the point where you stop freaking out around them, even when they've transformed."

Trent swallowed hard, and looked like he desperately wanted to say no.

"He's your other best friend?" said Miles slowly. "…um. Okay. I'd go."

"…_really?_" said Sam and Trent, more or less simultaneously.

"Thank you," said Sam, honestly meaning it.

"God," muttered Trent, still looking horrified. Sam wasn't sure if he was even meaning to speak out loud. "_I_ wouldn't. Damn." Louder he said "Fine. I'll go."

"Good. Actually, you'll be safer with those two then just about anywhere else."

There was a slight pause as the three boys all hesitated. It slowly slid into a more comfortable state as they all started eating again.

After a few more minutes Judy came back out of the breakfast. "Any more to eat?" she asked hopefully.

"Yes, please," said all three boys immediately. She smiled.

"I told you I wasn't making too much breakfast, Sam," she said.

oOo

"So, who are the Autobots?" asked Miles at last. He'd moved on to the asking-questions stage.

"There's five Autobots on earth right now," said Sam. "Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Jazz, Ratchet and Ironhide. I've already told you that much. But I guess I haven't told you much else…

"Optimus Prime's their leader. Very—heroic, I guess. If I had to say who I respected most, in all the world, I'd say it was him. He's—I don't know.

"Bumblebee's the one I know best. He's incredible. A lot of fun, and really funny, probably the youngest of the group—not that that means much, in human years. They're all _ancient_. He's a spy, but a pretty wicked fighter too.

"Jazz—I don't know him very well. From the sounds of things, my _mom_ knows him better than I do. I have no idea how she does that. But he's Optimus' second-in-command. He's got… A lot of personality. He's pretty friendly. Brave—to the point of foolhardy, if you ask Ratchet.

"Ratchet's the medic. He's usually pretty calm and even-tempered, but he's kind of scary—and by that I mean incredibly horrifying—when he's angry, usually because someone's done something stupid. Mikaela and two others are with him right now, I don't know where, exactly. We'll probably end up meeting up with them at the lookout later.

"Ironhide's… Well, he's something of a gun-happy maniac. Totally crazy. He threatened to shoot me when we first met. Technically he's the 'weapons specialist' of the team, meaning that he blows shit up."

"Language, Sam," his mother called mildly from the kitchen, where she was eavesdropping as she finished packing the boys' picnic.

"Sorry, Mom. Anyways, Ironhide's also kind of attached himself to another human family—the Lennoxes. There's three of them, Will, Sarah and the baby, Annie. Well, Annabelle, really. There being watched over by him right now, and I think the rest of the members of his team are going to end up camping out with them as well. Nobody wants to leave possible targets alone in this situation."

"That's crazy," Miles said. Sam wasn't sure which bit of it he was referring to.

It was half past noon, and the three boys were hanging out in Sam's living room, waiting for Jazz. Trent was being incredibly quiet; Miles was more talkative. Sam was doing his best to make the situation easier for Miles, at least, but the slightly pathetic air Trent had to him was making him act a little nicer than he otherwise would have. Not that that meant much, really.

"And the Decepticons?"

"Mostly dead, at least the ones we knew of. But there's more arriving, we're afraid. Starscream survived the final battle, and Barricade—he's the one who went after us. Scorponok—a giant metal scorpion—is rotting somewhere out in a desert in Iraq, but he's probably been shut down because his host, Blackout, was killed."

"How many are out there?"

"How many what? Well, I suppose it doesn't matter, we don't know, when it comes to any of them—Autobots, Decepticons, whatever. The war took so long, and things were so scattered—nobody new has arrived, even though Optimus sent out a message."

There was a long silence, and then Miles screamed, making Sam and Trent jump and, in Trent's case, flail slightly frantically.

"_What?_" Sam yelled back.

"What's going on?" Judy called from the kitchen, bustling out to have a concerned look.

"Ohhh. It's Jazz." Sam waved at the Autobot, who was peeking in the window. Judy blanched. "What?" asked her son.

Instead of responding, she hurried for the door. Sam drifted after her, but the other two boys stayed firmly where they were, watching the Autobot who was cheerfully watching them right back.

"Hello, Judy," he said as she made her way up to him. "Hey, Sam. How're you doing?"

"My _garden,_" breathed Judy. "You're on my _roses_."

"What?" said the mech, thrown for a loop. Sam groaned. Right—Jazz had been dead. He'd missed Judy reading Optimus the riot act her second time at the lookout. She didn't like it when people walked in her garden, especially when they could cause the sort of damage the Autobots could. Over her shoulder, he slid a hand across his throat, miming slitting it, all the warning he could give.

"You're on my roses. My _mother's_ roses. What are you _doing?_ Don't you ever think? Be more careful! I dote over those roses—fertilizer and weeding like clockwork, water when it's dry, I prune them all, even the one with the thorns like knives, take care of them even in this damned California weather, and you… You! I've put _decades_ of work into those, me and my mother!"

"I'm sorry," said Jazz, trying to edge off of the square of garden without breaking anything else.

"And you got the lilies!" Judy breathed, horrified.

"Um, I'd be more concerned about how likely it is you're going to end up seen by the neighbors. Seeing as it's _broad daylight_," Sam said. Over from the driveway, Bumblebee chirped. Judy glared at him, and he shut up.

"Don't worry so much!" Jazz said breezily, but he complied and transformed.

"That is _so fucking cool_," Miles breathed from the doorway, which he was standing in. Trent was standing further away, although they were both keeping a healthy distance from both of the Autobots.

"Damn straight!" said Jazz, making Miles jump and Trent stifle a scream of his own. "Hey there, I'm Jazz."

"I'm Miles Gillon," he said automatically.

There was a brief pause. "You?" said Jazz finally. Trent jumped, this time. "Trent," he managed to get out through his surprise and fear.

"Miles is my other best friend—I've known him since forever—and Trent's Mikaela's ex-girlfriend. He was vandalizing Miles' mailbox when Barricade attacked, and I was giving Miles a ride home, so they both ended up caught in the crossfire."

Judy shook her head. "It's reprehensible, involving innocent children like that."

"They're _Decepticons_," Bumblebee pointed out.

"Yes, but still. I don't think that they could _all_ be like that." Bee made a mild noise of disagreement.

"It's true, though, that they're not all as bad as Barricade," said Jazz.

Judy shook her head. "Anyways, I'm holding you all up. Sam, here's the picnic basket—I packed some extra, in case other people showed up, I heard that they might. It all depends. Now get going, okay? I'll see you all later. Call if you're not going to be home tonight, Sam, and don't forget to stop by Trent and Miles' houses. You two will need clothes eventually. Bye!"

There was a brief pause. "So, who's going with who?" said Sam at last.

Judy poked her head back out of the doorway. "Probably Sam and Trent with Jazz, and Miles with Bumblebee," she said, tone indicating a firm suggestion. "That way, Sam can spend some more time with Jazz—you really haven't had much—and Miles can spend some time with Bumblebee. It will be good for Sam's two best friends to have some time to talk, get to know each other. Don't you think so, Sam?"

Trent looked hugely relieved. Again, Sam had the feeling that he hadn't wanted to end up alone—well, for a given extent of 'alone.' He would have been with one of the Autobots, no matter what. Actually, that might be the problem—it would make more sense, certainly.

"…okay?" said Miles.

"You two are okay with whatever?" Sam asked the two Autobots.

"Sure," Jazz said. Bumblebee beeped in agreement. "But let's _go_."

oOo

"How did you meet Sam?" the car asked Miles suddenly, making him jump as the silence broke. "How long have you known him?"

"Oh! Uh, Kindergarten, I guess—it's been a long time. We've been in the same class every year since—up until junior high and high school, we haven't had _all_ our classes together for the past while—except for fifth grade, when my parents tried to send me to private school. That didn't work."

Silence fell again.

"…I have no idea what to say," said Miles finally.

"Yeah. Neither do I," confessed Bumblebee. Miles laughed a little, nervously. There was another silent pause, but it was slightly more comfortable.

"I'm sorry you ended up involved in this mess," said Bee.

Miles shook his head. "No, I'm glad. I mean, it's Sam's life, and I'm his best friend—I should know about what's happening to him. And nothing really bad's happened to me yet, other than being stuck rooming with Trent for a while, I mean, and being forced to treat him like a real human being, so there's nothing to worry about there." He paused, briefly. "…And you guys are _really damn cool_."

oOo

"If you turn right at the next intersection you can avoid the worst of the traffic," said Trent, looking sideways at Sam. They were just leaving his house—they'd stopped to let him pick up some clothes and whatever else he wanted from his house.

"Don't tell me," shrugged Sam. "Jazz's driving." He was, too, even though Sam was sitting in the driver's seat.

"Right," said Trent, swallowing nervously. Sam sighed. This was just _bunches_ of fun, wasn't it?

"How've things been going with you, Sam?" asked Jazz.

"Good. My life is three hundred times more interesting with you guys in it—even when there's not huge life-saving battles going on, like Mission City. But you know that it's been quiet—I'm sure somebody gave you a rundown of what's happened. And there's Mikaela." Sam jumped slightly, remembering Trent, and quickly switched to a different subject. "And Bee, of course. My life's pretty much perfect right now. …Or it was."

Because now he had his _other_ best friend and Trent, decidedly not any sort of friend of his at all, staying out his house because they were worried that bloodthirsty Decepticons, Barricade in particular, would come barreling down on them at any time. They weren't the only ones, either—Mikaela, Glen, Maggie, Will, Sarah and Annabelle, Epps, the rest of Will's team: they were all possibly in trouble, too. And they _didn't know_. That was somehow worst of all. He'd known the situation, more or less, during Mission City, once it had been explained to him. Now, they were taking shots in the dark when it came to the motives and the reality of the situation.

When he looked over again, Trent seemed down-right _scared_.

Sam sighed. "So what's up with you?" he asked Jazz, just for something to keep the conversation rolling.

"Nothing much—same old same old, y'know? Last thing I remember before I was reactivated was getting torn apart." Sam winced, and Trent's expression of fear took on a distinct hint of nausea. "It didn't hurt," added the car. "Which surprised the hell out of me, too."

"It's good to have you back," said Sam. "I mean, I never really got the chance to actually get to _know_ you, but…"

"Yeah," said Jazz, sounding slightly amused at Sam's floundering. (Actually, he sounded like he was highly amused but mostly hiding it, which was more or less correct.)

"So, how'd you get dragged into all this, Trent?" Jazz said. Trent jumped and yelped, then blushed, briefly, bright red, before he spoke.

"Um… I was there when Sam's car was attacked," he muttered.

"He's not _my_ anything," said Sam immediately. "And you were there because you were vandalizing Miles' mailbox! It wasn't like you just _happened_ to be in the area!"

Jazz snickered. "Vandalizing? How?"

Trent flushed again, and it didn't fade, this time. He didn't answer.

"Miles' last name is Gillon—he was changing it to 'Gibbon,'" Sam said for him, glaring at him moodily.

"Look, I _know_ it's stupid, and kinda immature," Trent said, sounding mortified. "It—I don't know_ why_ I was, it was just—You know, with the guys and everything…"

"No, I _don't_ know!" snapped Sam. "I've never picked out a few kids to bully mercilessly and, now that I _think_ about it, all the time I've spent with 'the guys' has involved you humiliating me, physically hurting me or both simultaneously, starting with second period PE in the seventh grade and continuing right up until two days ago when I saved you from death by giant evil robot."

"Sorry," cringed Trent.

"—and _now_ I'm keeping you in my house, again so giant evil robots don't kill you! You're sleeping in my room! My mother's cooking for you, and doing your _laundry_! You were using my _shower!_"

"Oookay," said Jazz, sounding incredibly amused. Even Trent gave him a slightly odd look for that last comment.

"At least with Miles we've been friends since the second week of Kindergarten! The last time he actually tried to embarrass me was the _first_ week of kindergarten, nearly twelve years ago, now. You? It was the _last time I saw you_, previous to this. And when I did find you, you were giving Miles an extra hour of work each day trying to scrub the paint off of his mailbox! And you're not even sure why! And Mikaela. Let's talk about _Mikaela._"

Trent was as close to cowering as Sam had ever seen him—well, as close to cowering as Sam had ever seen him when it wasn't Barricade who was doing the cowing.

"Wait, this guy's Mikaela's ex-boyfriend?" asked Jazz, sounding surprised. "I've heard about you, then. Funny, Judy never mentioned that…"

"And why does everybody end up talking to my _mom?_" Sam almost wailed, head in his hands.

"I'm… I don't know," Trent said, face a confusing mix of emotions and expressions. "I…" He didn't finish the sentence he'd started.

"You're young and stupid?" suggested Sam.

"He's in high school," cut in Bee, his voice passed through Jazz's speakers for the benefit of the humans. "_Everyone_ is young and stupid in high school."

"Hey!" said Sam and Miles, affronted, at more or less the same time. Sam continued. "…wait, how long have you two been listening in?"

"From the start," said Bumblebee cheerily. "Jazz suggested it."

"I told you not to tell them that!" Jazz said. "Now they know it was me…"

"Anyways," the Camaro continued, ignoring Jazz, "When you started ranting I switched it to my speakers so it was out loud, for Miles' sake."

There was the sound of Miles' half-muffled laughter in the background. Sam sighed. "But what makes _me_ young and stupid?"

"Well, you're _all_ young," said Jazz immediately, "And I think that sticking the Allspark in Megatron's chest definitely accounts for the 'stupid' part."

"Admittedly," added Bee, "That's a different sort of stupid than most high school students have—Trent, for example!"

Trent didn't blush, this time: he blanched instead, going pale.

"I _know_ I was stupid!" he said. "I've said I was sorry!"

"Again," said Miles, sounding incredulous. "He just apologized—possibly even to _me_—_again_. Oh my God."

"Do you have to rub it in?" Trent muttered.

"Hmmm. Years and years of sheer hell to the point where _you_ are the reason I failed health freshman year, one car ride… I wonder how that balances out? Yep, I think I do have to," Sam said.

"I'm _trying_," Trent said, looking desperate enough that Sam finally relented.

"Fine, then," he said. "But you owe Mikaela one hell of an apology. And I don't know how forgiving _she's_ going to be."

"And you're in luck!" said Bumblebee, who apparently _wasn't_ done holding his grudge. "Mikaela's going to show up later this afternoon, along with Ratchet and Maggie and Glen. And then possibly the rest of the Autobots! Even Ironhide, who'll have Will and his family and his military unit with him. And then maybe the Secretary of Defense, because everybody will already be gathered together, making things easier."

"…I don't think your mom packed a big enough picnic," said Miles, voice weak.

"The _Secretary of Defense?_" said Trent, eyes wide.

"Please don't tell my mom he's going to be there," said Sam, going white.

"Whoops," said Jazz, sounding about as unapologetic as it was possible to sound.

"Oh, noooo… She's going to show up to yell at him or something, I don't know what…" Sam said, looking horrified.

"Yeah, I can see Judy doing that," said Miles reflectively. "Have I told you recently that your mom is _incredibly cool?_ In a way that makes me glad she's not my mother."

"She might as well be," said Sam, somewhat vindictively. "You're living with us, she's known you forever, and she certainly acts like it…"

"She kind of does, doesn't she?"

"Why don't you two get out of us now we've arrived so that we can have our com systems back?" said Jazz, sounding amused.

"Wait, we're here?" said Sam. They were—or almost. The two Autobots hadn't actually pulled to a full stop yet, but they were at the lookout. "Huh. We are."

Once they actually had stopped the humans all emerged into the sunlight—it was a gorgeous day. There was a light breeze to keep the heat from getting to oppressive, and a few soft white clouds dotted the sky—it was the sort of scenery shot you find in cheap catalogues, except for the two Autobots who were now standing there, enjoying the scenery—if not the weather; it didn't make much of a difference, to them—with the three teenage boys.

oOo

Sunstreaker bit back a curse as Bed emerged back out of the woods she'd wandered into two hours earlier, seeing him in his full, fully untransformed, glory.

"Make any noise and I'll make sure you regret it," he said, voice flat, staring the girl down. Fortunately, it looked like he was going to be lucky—she wasn't a screamer when she was frightened. Or frightened by the sudden appearance of a giant robot, at least. He didn't know how she'd react to finding out that he was 'her' car.

If he'd had contact with anyone _useful_—that is, if he'd had contact with Autobots—he could have had himself outfitted with something harmless to knock the organics out, for situations like these. But no, he'd gotten her. And if she was too loud, the Decepticons currently investigating the parking lot he'd been left in were going to find the human, and him along with her. It wouldn't be a good experience for either of them.

"Oh… Oh, God. Jesus, Mary and Joseph," the girl whispered. And then she slumped over in a dead faint.

Sunstreaker controlled the urge to throw her to the 'Cons, if only because it would give him—and, through that, Sideswipe—away. An unconcious human was **not** something he needed, even if it _would_ keep the organic quiet for a while.

(1) Sawdust makes a poor mulch for gardens, because it leaches nitrogen out of the soil while it breaks down, which it does slowly. However, both of these problems are easily solved by dumping lawn trimmings on the sawdust whenever you mow—fresh grass has a high nitrogen content so the nutrients required for the decomposition don't end up being taken out of the soil, and there's a faster break-down time. In this particular case, Bec has also stuck a layer of newspaper on the very bottom, to smother the weeds and grass underneath the other mulches, but that's really only because she's putting in a new garden bed. Sunstreaker doesn't care about the newspaper because it didn't end up all over him.

--End Chapter 2--


	3. Chapter 3

**Getting To Know You**  
**Chapter Three**  
By Dreaming of Everything

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Transformers, in any of its various incarnations. I simply borrow, for my own nefarious purposes. (Watch out, world, I have fanfiction!)

**Author's Notes**: Got this chapter out quicker, go me! And there's a slight change of pace…

Many thanks to my beta, **mmouse15**!

oOoOoOo

Sunstreaker bit back a curse as the human girl emerged from the woods, walking right into a full view of the transformed Autobot.

"Oh… Oh, God. Jesus, Mary and Joseph," Bec whispered, poleaxed.

She dropped into a dead faint.

oOo

The organic was doing something weird. Its breathing had gone all funny.

At least it had finally woken up. It had been getting boring, just sitting there, waiting. Sunstreaker would have left the thing—he had no particular fondness for humanity in general, and this miserable little representative of it in particular—but he had the feeling that the Prime wouldn't approve, and even _he_ didn't want to start things off that badly.

For another thing, he was going to need someone to 'drive' him. Bec would serve that purpose nicely, assuming that she got over some of her current shock, and now that he'd been revealed he could give her _directions._ For one thing, his interior was never going to see another potted plant again, protective blanket or no.

He was tired of waiting for his brother—how long could it take to get in touch with someone, after all?—and maybe just _slightly_ worried that something had gone wrong. This was his second close call with Decepticons, after all, and they were out in the middle of nowhere.

Huh. Funny. The organic seemed to have _stopped_ breathing. That was new.

Belatedly, he realized that she was probably dying, but by then the girl had groped an inhaler out of her mud-smeared purse; it had fallen beside her, a little ways away. She was just as muddy, if not more so, now. Disgusting.

Forget potted plants, Sunstreaker wasn't letting _her_ inside him. Risk of discovery or not, she was walking home.

…No, wait, they needed to leave. He didn't want to wait for the girl to walk the thirty, forty miles back to her house. Especially not since he had the distinct suspicion that the 'Cons knew he was in the area—they'd been _looking_ for him. Even though they'd missed him, inept and bumbling idiots that they were, it hadn't been a chance encounter.

Someone was onto him. And what about Sides?

"What are you?" gasped the human, voice high and scared, shaking him out of his thoughts. He scowled at her.

"I'm an Autobot—an autonomous robotic entity. Miles above what _you_ are, squishy little organic."

"Oh God, Oh, God—"

Her breathing was speeding up again. Bored, Sunstreaker did a quick online search and identified the condition as hyperventilation. Humans really were fragile things, weren't they?

"Snap out of it," he demanded, poking at her. "_You_ are going to drive me to California. You are going to act as if everything is normal. You will phone one of your genetic donors and tell them something non-suspicious. You will not contact anyone else—do I _make myself clear?_"

Bec choked on a panicked breath, eyes wild with fear, cowering in the mud of the rough field that served as an impromptu parking lot during high-volume summer weekends.

"Yes," she managed to breath out, fumbling for her emergency inhaler again.

"_Good,_" the thing hissed, and—and _collapsed in on itself_, pulling and twisting and changing, until it was her car sitting there, apparently harmless. It pulled forward, fast enough to make Bec lunge backwards, stopping just short of her. A door popped open, just missing hitting her as well. Slowly, cautiously, Bec climbed inside, shivering hard. She sobbed involuntarily.

_What… What was happening…?_

"Disgusting," growled the—the robot's voice, filling the interior of the car. "You're covered in filth. _I'm_ covered in filth. You **will** deal with that."

"Yes," whispered Bec softly.

She was silent for the rest of the ride, except for a few soft, involuntary whimpers and the click of her teeth connecting when she shivered too hard.

oOo

Following instructions, she'd prepared herself. Clothes, money—the credit card attached to her father's account, the one she'd promised herself she'd never use—and a call to her father himself. She'd left her cell phone behind.

She hadn't even taken the time to set up the timed watering system for her garden, for while she was gone. She'd asked her father to see that it happened, to talk to a neighbor who'd helped her before, a bored, elderly and retired woman; he'd promised her that he'd hire a gardener. Bec had winced, but she hadn't argued.

Dada hadn't even wondered about why Bec hadn't just talked to her neighbor herself. It was natural, for him, for those sorts of things to not be too important.

They'd stopped at a car wash on the edge of town.

"Are you okay, miss?" the too-observant attendant had asked her.

"Fine," she'd said, eyes staring blind at the road in front of her, mouth thick. The car—the, the not-car, the _thing_ she was inside of—had gunned out of the lot, newly gleaming, and muttered angrily at her for what seemed like forever. She'd only recognized maybe half the curses.

She'd been careful to keep her tears from falling anywhere other than on her own lap, when they'd come. She'd been careful to be _quiet_.

She'd been quiet for the past two and a half hours. She'd been careful to. She hadn't cried that long, of course, but she'd been careful none-the-less.

Bec realized she was tugging on her left earring hard enough to hurt, and stopped. She kept herself from worrying her lip, and looked out the car window at the scenery flashing past instead. The road was utterly deserted. Night had fully fallen: it was so dark that she could barely see. She caught the gleam of raccoon eyes catching headlights ahead of her, and shivered. She couldn't stop once she started.

After a few minutes a light appeared to the side of the road—a gas station. "Don't get me caught," ordered the car, tone dripping condescension and threat. "You may leave to expel waste products. Don't think about running. I'm _watching_."

Bec stood hesitantly, feeling dizzy, but straightened quickly. She didn't brace herself against the car, didn't touch it at all, even when she hovered her hand just fractions of an inch away from the handle, making it look like she was closing it. She was careful not to brush Sunstreaker with a leg as she walked away.

The bathroom was inside and unlocked. Bec avoided the gaze of the bored attendant sitting behind the counter until she made it in, shooting the bolt home behind her. She looked about like she'd expected, she saw in the mirror: face pale and set, panicky, and eyes still faintly red from tears, and glazed with fear. She had a few patches of dried mud on her neck still, although she'd thought she'd gotten them all. She splashed her face with cold water, washing away the salt that had her skin feeling swollen and too-tight along with the dust. She attempted a smile in the mirror. It didn't look right, but it looked better.

She didn't want to give the—robot away, after all. She _didn't_.

She didn't know what would happen.

Bec smiled shyly at the cashier, who didn't bother to smile back, as she bought a bottle of water.

"Have a nice day," he said blankly as she left.

"You too," she called back, and her voice barely shook. Her gaze was lost again, though, face hard and set, fixed.

The car was silent as she returned. She looked at the bottle she'd bought blankly, and then thought she'd start crying again as she realized that she hadn't gotten one with a pull-top. She still didn't say anything as she tried to drink. She gave up after a few quick swallows, afraid she'd spill as they bumped over the rough road.

She didn't want that.

oOo

She'd fallen into a daze, almost asleep, although she was still too afraid for that, she thought. The adrenalin had started to wear off, a more pervasive, bone-deep fear setting in behind it, and it left her feeling numb and exhausted.

"Eat," demanded the car suddenly. It had pulled over into a rest stop; a single truck rested, a ways away, but other than that it was dark and deserted.

Bec didn't respond, but she stepped out when the door opened. She took her bag with her to the near-by picnic table and took out a granola bar. She stared at it blankly, unopened, until the car flashed its lights at her. She opened it and ate.

Five minutes later she was throwing up. She caught the trucker looking at her as she walked back to the car, panting faintly. She couldn't see the car—the robot—looking at her, but she thought it was.

oOo

They were driving again.

Sunstreaker was annoyed. Irritated. The organic, the human girl, was still silent.

She hadn't wanted to eat. He'd told her too, because with how often the things had regular meals they'd drop dead if they didn't eat three times a day or something. He needed the thing alive and healthy enough to keep her functional. She wouldn't be much good, otherwise.

She'd eaten when he'd ordered her to. And then she'd—_un_eaten it, or something. If the human digestive process was disgusting, _that_ was horribly revolting.

Apparently, it was a symptom of illness. She wasn't sick. Scans could tell him that much.

"You. Human," he said.

She didn't respond, except to shiver harder. He knew she'd heard him. Maybe she was broken, or something.

"_Respond,_" he said , forceful, modeling the command after a particular favorite order of an old ex-commander.

"Yes," she breathed, voice high and breathy and eyes fixed. Her nails were digging into her flesh where she'd left them on her legs.

"That—_thing_ you did earlier. Why?"

"Stress," she said, so faint that Sunstreaker didn't think another human would have heard it.

"It just… happens, sometimes?" he pressed onwards, fascinated. It was revolting, but somehow you couldn't help but want to know more.

"You usually know when it's about to happen," Bec whispered, answering automatically as the rest of her tied itself into terrified knots. "You can feel it. I do it when I'm stressed. I used to throw up before all my piano recitals, when Dada told me to eat something."

"Why did you eat, then?"

"Because he told me to," she said, answering and not answering his question, and then her fear got the better of her tongue and she couldn't form words anymore. She curled in tight on herself, and tried to force herself to stillness.

oOo

She had fallen asleep, Bec realized. She must have, because now she was waking up.

They were at another rest stop. The sun was just starting to break the horizon.

"Finally," grumbled the car, and Bec flinched. "I couldn't risk travel after _you_ fell asleep—too great a chance we'd get caught. You humans are pathetic." Bec flinched again, then stilled. She fumbled for her inhaler, but didn't need to use it. After a few minutes of silence, without any further reproach, she calmed a little, and put her medicine back in her purse.

"Eat," said Sunstreaker at last.

"Yes," said Bec, obedient and unresponsive.

"—if you want to," tacked on Sunstreaker, unwillingly. Primus knew he didn't want to watch _that_ again.

Bec ate half an apple and another granola bar before her stomach rebelled. She drank a bottle and a half of water, refilling it at the drinking fountain, and still felt parched.

oOo

She was still being silent.

Sunstreaker was kind of bored.

"It figures that I still end up dragging myself across this Primus-forsaken planet on some sort of pointless, needle-in-a-haystack chase," he said out loud. Hearing himself talk was better than this repressive silence, at least. Although it was kind of weird how the girl tensed and her breathing went funny whenever he said anything to her. "Sideswipe's lucky. He's stuck here too, but _he_ didn't end up with some nasty organic thing inside him.

"Of course, there's always the chance that he got himself caught by Decepticons. …No, that won't have happened. Sides is better than that. We're hardly infiltration specialists, but we're not _stupid_. Well, I'm not. Sometimes I wonder about _him._"

He fell silent again.

"Say something," he said at last.

Bec was fighting for breath. She could feel it coming harder and harder, the passageways swelling closed, and it shot fresh life through the dumb fear that had filled her, electrical.

She grasped for her purse, but it wasn't there, strained to look behind her, and could barely see it, where a quick stop had sent it spinning into the back of the car. She fumbled for the catch of the seatbelt, but it wouldn't depress.

"What are you _doing?_" demanded her—captor, and she gasped, coughing.

"Please," she said, breath wheezing through her throat. "_Please_ oh God please— Can't breath—"

Sunstreaker made a noise that was almost a sigh.

"Whatever," he said, switching lanes. A few seconds later he pulled over to the side of the road, slowly rolling to a halt. Bec was still fighting uselessly to undo the seatbelt, and she was frantic when he finally let her loose. He frowned internally as she lunged for her purse, grasped at her inhaler, fingers shaky and inaccurate.

What was the big deal? She'd still been able to breath: she'd been able to talk.

"What?" he demanded. She didn't respond. A few minutes later she started crying. He'd seen her cry a lot: once or twice just during the day, once when she'd found a bird that had flown into her window, when her father and then her mother had visited, the night before, as they'd started driving. It had never been this—desperate, uncontrolled, unselfconscious—not because of embarrassment, but because of fear. He frightened her—helpless as she was, useless as her species was, that was only logical—but not as badly as this had shaken her, for now, at least.

She was getting salty squishy-scented water on his interior, he thought with some annoyance, but he didn't say anything.

oOo

Sunstreaker decided to start with the origin of the message they'd caught. It was as good a place as any—and there was at least a chance that the Decepticons would avoid it because of the possible Autobot threat there.

He ignored the fact that it was also where Sideswipe had been planning to start.

Bec was quiet again, looking quietly out the window. He'd stopped three more times for her. She'd only eaten once, and only when he'd told her to. She hadn't done _anything_ he hadn't told her to do, verbally or nonverbally. It was frustrating, in a way he couldn't act on, because she wasn't actually doing anything insubordinate, nothing he could yell at her for—not that he hadn't snapped at her once or twice anyways, just for the hell of it.

There was a motley collection of earth vehicles waiting there already. He stiffened, ready to spring into action, as he approached. The girl was entirely unaware of it all, of course. He figured she'd be easy enough to jettison, if he needed to transform quickly.

And then he recognized Sideswipe's bright alt form mixed in with the rest of them and relaxed. They didn't, though: two—a little gray-colored one and a black-colored one bigger than he was, with the most ridiculously over-sized cannons he'd ever seen—transformed, rising to meet him. Bec's breath caught in her throat, but nothing more. They were followed to their feet, just a second later, by a quickly-explaining Sideswipe and the big truck.

Sunstreaker banged a door open quickly and Bec got out so quickly that she ended up half-sprawled on the ground, bag and purse next to her. He ignored her, transforming quickly and striding forward to meet his brother. "What the slag's the idea?" he growled, covering up his emotions. "Don't tell me I've spent this whole time waiting for you while you relax?"

"Oh, yeah, 'cause that's all I've been doing, Sunny—yeah, I know, don't call you that. No, I ran into some trouble. Okay, this's my brother—Sunstreaker, this is Optimus Prime, Jazz, Ironhide, Ratchet and Bumblebee—"

Sunstreaker ignored the small cluster of humans watching them and the three that detached themselves to walk swiftly over towards the human he'd brought.

"And the human?" asked Optimus Prime as the introductions finished.

Sunstreaker cast a disinterested look behind him at the visibly shaking girl being held by Mikaela and Sarah, Sam and now Maggie hovering nearby looking uncomfortable and worried. "Oh. The organic who 'owned' me. She caught me untransformed while I was hiding from Decepticons, so she did me the favor of serving as my _driver_ for my trip down."

Optimus frowned deeply, and the expressions on several of the other Autobots took on a distinctly threatening look.

"Primus, Sunny, what'd you do to her?" muttered Sideswipe, looking slightly annoyed. She looked like she was sobbing, but she wasn't making any noise except for her harsh breathing, her body shaken back and forth by the motion and still trembling. It looked like she was mostly being held up by the two women. Her eyes were almost dry.

"What? I didn't do anything. Just because they're pointless things—"

The little yellow one had transformed guns now. Sunstreaker found it hard to take him seriously—but he supposed there had to be _something_ to him. He'd heard about Tyger Pax…

"You're the only one of us she knows," said the Prime carefully. "Can you calm her down?"

"Sure," said Sunstreaker, even as his brother pinged him with a private warning. He took the few steps over to the cluster and sunk to his knees, bringing himself a little _closer_. The humans looked protective and wary, except for Bec; she just looked blank again.

"Stop," he said, voice a casual order—the sort of voice that said the speaker didn't need to worry about being obeyed.

Bec did. There was a long silence before the girl, eyes still fixed on the giant looming in front of her like a panicking bird in a snake's gaze, started searching blindly through her purse. Maggie's spat curse broke the silence.

"Fuck! She's asthmatic. And you—get the hell away from her," she ground out, moving over to help the girl.

Sunstreaker bristled, but his brother was on him before he could react. "Just leave it, Sunny," said Sideswipe, looking serious. Sunstreaker understood, a little, as he turned to see the line of Autobots glaring at him.

oOo

"Holy shit," muttered Trent from the ground. His first experience with Cybertronians had been Bumblebee and Barricade fighting viciously: that had been horrifying. From there, though, he'd met and talked to, at least a little, Bumblebee, Jazz, Ratchet, Optimus Prime and Ironhide, and then Sideswipe. They were a little frightening, but that was just because any one of them could step on him and not even notice. And just because of what they were. Not because he actually thought any of them were going to actually _kill_ him. Well, maybe Ironhide, but Sam had told him that he was like that with_everyone_ but probably—almost definitely—wouldn't actually do it, and everyone else had agreed.

This one, though? The new one, Sunstreaker? He was fucking _scary_. He had no idea what had happened to the girl but… Shit, she was messed up.

Everyone else seemed to agree.

Yeah, he hadn't reacted well to the _giant robots from outer space_ disguised as Witwicky's—Sam's—car, but he hadn't been freaking out like that. From the looks she was getting, nobody had. And then when the new one, the yellow one—a damn fine Lamborghini untransformed, part of him though—had kneeled like that, looming over the humans, and just ordered her to stop panicking with that one word—"Stop."

_Damn_.

He hadn't believed it when he saw the computer chick stand up to that, angry and demanding._"And you—get the hell away from her!"_ Fuck, he'd just been frozen. What kind of man did that make him? He had the feeling that he knew. He knew his dad did.

oOo

Judy Witwicky pulled in behind the two military vehicles satisfied with the continued existence of her perfect timing. She'd wanted to give the boys a chance to spend a little time together with the Autobots, give Miles and even that Trent a chance to settle in some more, but she also didn't want to miss her chance to talk to the government—and, more specifically, to the Secretary of Defense. She had some_questions_. She was sure Sam would be horrified.

She'd also packed a large picnic—there was a good number of people there, after all: the three boys plus Mikaela, the Lennoxes plus the rest of Will's old unit, Maggie and Glen, Keller and his retinue, and Ron was going to stop by after work, which meant any time, now. All the rattling—some of the cutlery had gotten loose—was a bit annoying, but it wasn't too bad.

Judy was very glad indeed she'd come when she noticed the two newcomers: one was bright red, the other bright yellow, and they were hard to miss. She smiled. New fighters would help to keep her son—and all the others, of course—safe, what with this new, unknown Decepticon threat.

But the air was tense as she walked away from her car, parked a judicious distance away, and towards the Autobots. One of the newcomers in particular was earning a number of angry glares, from both the humans (and she could see that several of them were missing from the cluster) and the other Autobots.

"Hello," she called out brightly as she approached.

"Hey, Judy," said Miles, looking up.

"Hello," echoed Trent, before he fell silent. There was a little pile of ripped-up dry grass in front of him, and he seemed to be thinking.

There were greetings all round, from both the Autobots and the humans. The newcomers stayed away from her, more on the edges, although the yellow one sent her a sullen glare.

It was Jazz who finally got around to introducing them.

"And these are Sideswipe—" the red one "—and Sunstreaker. Oh, and Sarah wanted to talk to you," he continued, lying smoothly. "Some questions about baby Anna, I think. She's down the hill a ways." He gestured in the right direction.

"Alright," said Judy. She said a polite hello the Secretary as she passed him, nodding at his assistants, and headed down the hill. She'd always get the chance to talk to him later—and she knew that Jazz knew that she wanted to, meaning that he probably had a _reason_ to send her over to where Sarah was.

There was someone else with them, she realized with some surprise as she approached. The sun was starting to slant so they were backlit, hard to see, but she could make out Sarah, Sam and Mikaela plus one more.

"Hello!" she called out again as she drew closer, and the stranger jumped, a little shaken.

There was a chorus of returned greetings.

"Judy, this is Rebecca Kurtz," introduced Sarah calmly. "Rebecca, this is Judy Witwicky."

"She's my mom," added Sam.

"It's nice to meet you," said Bec automatically. Judy covered her frown.

"It's nice to meet you, too. Are you okay…? You look like you've had a rough day—"

Bec shivered.

"She came in with Sunstreaker," said Sarah. Mikaela snorted expressively. She clearly didn't have a high opinion of the Autobot, and Judy was inclined to trust her opinion—and she was guessing that she hadn't even heard most of the story yet.

"He's an ass," said Sam flatly. Judy was tempted to call him on his language, but decided the situation warranted it.

"What happened?" She directed the question directly at Bec.

"I— He— They… Oh God, he scares me so bad. He—" Judy frowned, deeply. "And my asthma. I couldn't breath. How can you—"

_How can you be around them,_ Judy finished, mentally.

"I'm sorry," she said, gently, pulling the nonresistant girl into a hug. "I'm so sorry… Shush, it's all right. I promise they're not all like that. None of them are. If I know Optimus, he'll make sure that you're never bothered by him again."

"He's earned Bumblebee's eternal enmity, at the very least," cut in Mikaela.

"But—all of them—"

"They're very human, for what they are," said Judy. "Bumblebee likes music. _All_ music, as far as I can tell. He's Sam's best friend, and he's saved his life, over and over. Ratchet gets annoyed whenever someone comes in to him all dinged up because they were doing something stupid, and he takes his own version of the Hippocratic Oath as seriously as the most devoted human doctor. Ironhide's a grouch, but he dotes over Annie when he's not scared silly of her—he'd die happy if it meant he was protecting the Lennox family. Optimus is a hero and an incredible person, and he's also kind of broody when he's not shaken out of it, sometimes. Sam saved his life, you know. And the whole world, but his life in particular. Jazz tries his hardest to not be taken seriously, and makes up for it by being incredibly intelligent, even if he does kind of think in right angles."

Bec looked disbelieving.

"I don't know what's up with the one who found you, but most of the Autobots are great," said Mikaela. "I guess it's like people—there are good ones and bad ones and a lot that fall in the middle. Although you'd think he'd have been a Decepticon, rather than Autobot… But he seems really self-centered. Really—callous."

"_Some_body's been studying SAT vocabulary," said Sam quietly.

Mikaela ignored him. "All of the humans here have close ties, through some reason or another, to one or more of the Autobots. Bee's my best friend, and Sam's, but 'best friend' isn't—it doesn't really cover it."

Judy nodded. "He made me a little nervous at first—they all did—but he did save my Sam's life, so I started talking to him. To all of them. They've all been very polite."

"Don't tell anyone I told you this, but she unnerves Optimus to no end," whispered Maggie to Bec. "Something about how she's the mother of the person who saved his life. Well, that and she has a remarkably forceful personality when she wants to…"

"I wasn't one of the first ones to meet the Autobots," said Sarah. "My husband was, though. I didn't find out about _any_ of this until about a week after Mission City. So the first Autobot I met was Ironhide—and he's hardly the most… _relaxed_ Autobot. Actually, you could probably argue he's the scariest of them all. He was, at least—I don't know about that Sunstreaker. I was really scared for a while, even once I got past the 'Oh my God, there's an alien truck parked in the driveway' part of things. I didn't really trust him until he took out an enraged bear for us on a camping trip."

"A… bear?" Bec looked slightly incredulous.

"We were just tent camping, because of Annie—we'd driven to Yellowstone, and we'd taken Ironhide as our car for the trip. We're in our campsite and everything's fine until a bear comes along. It starts going through a tub of food that some idiot left out, and the group next to them sees it and panics. They shoot it—and it's a miracle they didn't hit someone else in the campsite—but it's not enough to do anything other than enrage the thing. It runs off, heading in _our_ direction—we'd camped a good ways further down than most of the other campers—and Ironhide shoots it just in the nick of time."

"How'd you explain_that_ to the camp warden?" asked Mikaela, curious.

"By lying through our teeth," said Sarah cheerfully.

"Anyways," continued Sam, "Right now, we've all been put under the guard of one of the Autobots. It's because of the Decepticons—they're worried that they're going to go after us. They already have once already. That's why Miles and Trent are here. You'll probably need to be assigned to one of them, too."

Bec blanched.

"It won't be Sunstreaker," said Sarah immediately. "I don't know _who_ it will be, but not him."

"Hmm," said Judy. "Let's see—Bee's watching Miles, Trent and Sam; Ratchet's watching Mikaela, Maggie and Glen; Ironhide's watching the Lennoxes and Captain Lennox's team, or unit, or whatever it is that soldiers call it. Optimus needs to be unrestricted, of course, and Jazz is still assigned to the base, because Ratchet wants him on light duty for a while longer."

"How do you know all this?" asked Maggie, amazed. "I mean, I knew the assignments, but_I_ had no idea that Ratchet wanted Jazz assigned to base, and I practically _live_ with Ratchet now! –I do, in fact. We're all at Glen's house, because his grandma knows about the situation and Mikaela's mom doesn't, and my apartment's too small to fit us all. I have no idea what the neighbors think about having an emergency vehicle there."

"Hah!" said Sam, sounding vindicated. "I told you, Mikaela! My mom's got this, this—I don't know, it's like she's a spy or something, she always knows what's going on even before it happens, or even when it's top-secret, or just stuff nobody would expect somebody to_know_—"

"Oh, nonsense, Sam. I just pay attention. Now, I think it would be best to put you with Jazz, Rebecca, because I know that my house is awful full, and I'd imagine that Adrianna's house is as well, and there's already so many people with the Lennoxes—"

"—_I_ don't know Glen's grandma's name," said Maggie, looking unnerved. "I just call her Mrs. Whitman…"

"Oh, that's wrong, dear, she's his maternal grandmother—her surname's Roring. As I was saying, I think that it'd be best to put Rebecca—"

"Bec," said Bec, interrupting. Everyone's eyes snapped to her, and she blushed. "Everyone calls me Bec."

Everyone except her mother. Her mother called her Rebecca.

"To put Bec with Jazz. It would be convenient, and he's very personable."

"I don't know," said Maggie doubtfully. "Ratchet doesn't like his orders being ignored, even when they're technically recommendations because he's outranked, but he usually has a good reason for giving them out in the first place…"

"I might be able to talk him around," said Judy confidently. "Anyways, Bec might need to stay at the Autobot base anyways, and then he's still around."

"_I_ wouldn't argue with him," said Sarah. "And I argue with _Ironhide_. Almost daily, actually. I continue to maintain that 'Ironhead' would be a more apt name."

"And does he threaten to shoot you?" asked Sam dryly.

"Almost daily," replied Sarah, with a grin. "I usually win, though. He'll do almost anything if you threaten him with infants. Or with Annie, at least."

"And where is little Annabelle?" asked Judy with the proprietal air of a surrogate grandmother—or great-aunt, at least.

"With Bobby Epps and the rest of the team. They went on a hike, I think."

"—you argue with them?" said Bec, voice thin.

"Well, yes," said Sarah.

"With some of them, you need to," said Judy.

"_I_ usually don't," said Sam, mock-virtuously. Mikaela rolled her eyes and jokingly half-pushed him.

"They can get weird, especially when it comes to human things," added Maggie. "Sometimes they're _hard_ to argue with, but that's only because they're smart and their handle on human cultures—and what parts of our cultures make sense—can be a little iffy. Also, they have more reliable source material. But other than that, it's just like arguing with someone else."

Bec shuddered. The others exchanged concerned glances.

"I think it might be good for you to meet some of the others for yourself," said Judy gently, putting a caring hand on her shoulder. "You'll see. They're not all alike. They're not all like that."

oOo

"Are you hungry?" Judy asked Bec after a while. "Or have you eaten already—"

"Oh, no, I should have thought of offering you something to eat!" said Sarah immediately. "It's just, you arrived after we'd eaten and with the excitement I hadn't thought—Oh, I'm so sorry—"

"I'm hungry, too," added Mikaela. Sam and Maggie nodded.

"Good—I packed a picnic for everyone."

Sam groaned. Knowing his mother—which he did—she would have included the Secretary of Defense and his retinue along with that 'everyone.' Doubtless she was going to try to feed him freezer-jam-and-peanut-butter sandwiches, now. Along with his serious, vaguely threatening bodyguards and the frosty, professionally cold assistants.

"I'm not very hungry," said Bec quietly.

"When did you last eat?" asked Judy, looking over at her.

"Around eleven this morning," said Bec quietly.

"And what did you have?"

"An apple and a granola bar."

"And before that?"

"Ten-thirty last night. I… Threw it back up."

There was a long silence.

"Before that?" continued Judy, sounding like she wasn't sure she wanted to know.

"I don't know. My last meal before—this happened."

"I _see,_" said Judy, lips a thin, unhappy line. "Come, I'll get you something to eat. Does stress upset your stomach?" Bec nodded slowly. "Okay, then. You shouldn't eat if you're just going to throw it back up again, you know. Are you feeling a little calmer now?"

"I _know_," Bec sniffled. "But he—"

There was a horrified silence. Bec tried to explain. "He—told me to, and I couldn—didn't want to argue. So…"

"We'll need to work on that," said Sarah gently. "You'll soon find that the Autobots can be insufferable know-it-alls, the kind that really do_know it all_—it comes by virtue of having the entire Internet at their fingertips, so to speak—but when it comes to day-to-day maintenance of the human body, they're at a distinct disadvantage, since they don't have one."

Bec managed a weak smile.

oOo

"Okay, here we are." Judy looked back over her shoulder, ignoring the wide-eyed, frightened stare Bec was giving the Autobots, now silhouetted against the horizon by the almost-set sun. The light was strangely bloody, the sky unusually red. It probably wasn't helping the poor girl. "Rebecca—Bec—would you help me a little?"

"Yes," she said, automatically, blinking her attention away from the distant giants.

Sam and Mikaela went over to see what was happening with the Autobots, and Sarah followed. "I don't want to just leave you," she'd said, apologetic, "but I want to see if Bobby's back with Annie—you should meet her, Bec! She's adorable." Bec had paled until she was almost the same color she'd been when she'd fallen out of Sunstreaker as he pulled up. Everyone had laughed—Bec included, after a minute.

So Judy and Bec dragged out food and the cooler of drinks and table settings (plastic and paper, although Judy had packed real tablecloths, for the handful of picnic benches; there were too many people for the heavy-duty plastic settings they had for camping, and she didn't trust her ceramics along this sort of bumpy, middle-of-nowhere road.) At least it would be easier to pack up—hopefully, most of it would be eaten by then.

As they finished and surveyed the completed job, Judy snuck a glance over towards where the Autobots were still gathered. The humans were hidden behind their collective bulk, she knew. "Just a second," she told Bec. "I'm going to go tell everyone that dinner's ready. I'm sure they're hungry by now—it's late. Help yourself to whatever you want, and take a seat. I'm sure you're exhausted."

Bec didn't say anything as Judy walked away, but she did sit down and poke half-heartedly at the plate of sandwiches in front of her. It wasn't particularly appetizing; her stomach was still roiled with stress. Instead she cast a nervous glance towards the huddle of cars a ways away: Judy's, Epps' and a handful belonging to Keller and his entourage.

She looked away to watch the humans now approaching. A mixed bunch: Sam and Mikaela, apparently typical teenagers; Maggie and Glen, although neither looked like a genius hacker; a handful of soldiers, and the wife of their captain with their baby daughter in tow; Judy and Ron Witwicky, apparently just any middle-aged couple; and the Secretary of Defense and his entourage.

Bec was pretty sure she wasn't ready to meet them. She wasn't a _people_ person. She wasn't personable. The rest of her family was, beginning and ending with her mother, who lived for socialization. She'd always been the odd one out. The black sheep, who only wanted to live as normal a life as she could, and some peace and privacy, and a chance to work in her garden. In any garden. She was majoring in botany. Most days, all she worried about was remembering the difference between the various varieties of paintbrush in the area. On a bad day, she thought about her family—

Her family. They had no idea where she was. Her father, her dada, didn't think anything was wrong. Her mother wouldn't, either. She probably wouldn't expect to hear from Bec until just before the trip to Hawaii for Susan's wedding in October, and that wouldn't be for months. How long would she be expected to stay here?

The—alien, the robot, certainly didn't want her. Maybe he'd let her go home. She could catch a bus and repair the damage the gardener her father had promised her he'd hire—and he always went through with his promises to his little girl—and throw herself back into her studies (she was facing her thesis, it was finally coming up) and forget all this. She could build normalcy back up.

But the government. They might _not_ want her going back home, if they were in on this—and they were keeping this secret. They might think she was a security risk, or whatever term they used. Who knew how long. And she lived all alone and didn't want to deal with people, and so she could disappear and nobody would know—like one of those little old ladies who live alone, and nobody discovers they're dead until they notice the smell.

She'd been happy like that. It meant that now nobody knew where she was. Nobody would notice, until October. Right now, it was halfway between the middle and end of July.

Bec was startled, badly, by someone sitting down across from her, and she jumped, visibly. She felt her face burn with shame.

"Hello, there," he said kindly, politely ignoring her surprise and embarrassment.

"Hello," she said softly, in return.

"I don't think we ever got properly introduced—sorry. I've been held up all afternoon. I'm William Lennox. You've met my wife, Sarah?"

"Yes," she replied, voice still quiet, faint. "I have. She's been very kind to me. Everyone has." There was a pause. Belatedly, she added, "I'm Bec Kurtz. Rebecca Kurtz."

"Nice to meet you, then. How are you doing?"

"Fine, thank you," she said, lying through her teeth. "And you?"

"Well, I could be better," he said in turn, voice confiding, obviously truthful, which tied another knot in Bec's stomach. "We're all worried about this new situation we're in—have you heard anything?"

But Bec just shook her head in terror. "Please, I just want to go home," and she couldn't help the quiver that filled her voice. Lennox looked at her with some sympathy, and something else she couldn't quite recognize, or name.

"I'm—I'm just a college student," she continued, feeling very much like she needed to say _something_.

For one thing, all these people hadn't chosen to meet with the Autobots in the first place, but they'd all chosen to _keep on spending time with them_. They'd chosen to risk their lives, to be with—friends.

"I'll go back to my cheap little rented house—I live in Oregon, a nice mild climate. For gardening, you know. And I'll—the tomatoes need watering twice a day, now, they're in pots, and I'm ordering bulbs for fall. And I've got papers to worry about, and I was hoping to get a booth at the local farmer's market, to sell some of the apples from the old trees on the property this fall, I could use the extra income, I've got student loans—"

"Wait, you're worrying about money, and you bought a car like _that?_" Will nodded in the direction of the yellow mech, now pointedly ignoring his brother, who was talking excitedly about something.

"It was a gift from my father," said Bec quietly, but there was an unexpectedly cold wall inside the soft tones, barring any further questions.

Bec had just wanted to—live a normal life, alone. Her family had made that hard, maybe impossible, but she'd been trying anyways.

She wasn't a hero. Almost everyone else here was, in some way. If nothing else, they hadn't turned tail and run away.

She could live with that, though. It took all sorts. Bec _knew_ that. It took people like her parents and people like the heroic Captain Lennox and people like her.

Another handful of people sat down, further along the picnic bench, and Will turned to talk to them. Bec looked at the still-uninteresting food, finally picked up a sandwich and took a bite. After that, she ate it quickly—she hadn't realized she'd been so hungry. She hadn't thought she'd been hungry at all.

Bec finished and stood, wandering away from the table towards a stand of scrubby trees. She couldn't quite tell what they were from where she was… And it was getting dark. Dusk had fallen.

She broke off a twig and pressed a finger into the watery sap, fiddled with a leaf. It wasn't a very interesting tree. She missed her home, and her garden, and the firs that made it impossible to grow anything that needed more than partial sun, try as she might with the tomatoes.

And then one of the shadowy cars to the side of the trees, she'd assumed it had been one of the Secretary of Defense's, stood up, and Bec couldn't help herself. She screamed.

And then the shadow-shrouded figure shot at her, and Bec went dumb with shock.

--end chapter 3--


	4. Chapter 4

**Getting to Know You****  
Chapter Four**  
By Dreaming of Everything

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Transformers, in any of its incarnations, in any way, shape or form.

**Author's Notes**: The summary has been re-evaluated, and this fic will have six chapters in total. …Twice as many as originally planned, yes. But on the upside, I now have an updated outline. Plans have changed.

In other news, nice long chapter here! Hope you enjoy.

As always, thanks to my beta, **mmouse15**!

oOoOoOo

Bec screamed and fell backwards as the car she was standing besides transformed. She had a sudden impression of roaring heat and noise—an explosion. She might have screamed again.

That yellow streak running past her—over her—must be Sunstreaker. The ground shook with the footsteps of the footsteps of the giants surrounding her, and then the more with another explosion, and another. There were a handful of metallic scrapes, squeals and crashes, and then a scream, awful and metallic, that made the hair at the nape of Bec's neck stand up with an instinctual fear.

"Sunstreaker got him," said Sideswipe casually. Bec could hardly hear it over the ringing in her ears.

"Are you alright?" a voice asked, behind her. It was hard to tell—she couldn't hear well, and it was hard to think through the new wave of adrenalin—but she thought that it sounded concerned.

"I'm fine," she said automatically.

"You're in shock, you're bleeding and you may have sustained a concussion," the voice corrected.

"So, was asking me how I was just some sort of twisted formality?" said Bec, exhaustion and new fear overcoming her, turning into irrational, uncharacteristic irritation. She'd probably regret it inside an hour, but right now she couldn't resist the urge to be childish and petty. Damn, that cut on her leg was worse than she'd thought it had been.

"Yes," said the voice as Bec turned around. She nearly fell over again as she tried to lurch back—her head was swimming—because the 'voice'—it belonged to one of the robots, who was eyeing her inscrutably.

She'd been _back-talking_ one of them. Irrationally, it reminded her of grade school, when she and a friend had been caught making fun of the scariest teacher in the school by the woman herself.

"Here," he said, handing her an unmarked bottle. "It's an antiseptic." He handed her bandages as well. "Can you take care of the cut yourself?"

Bec stared dumbly for a long second before her mind caught up and she nodded, swiftly.

"So, are you just saying that because you don't want to disagree, or because you actually do know how?"

Bec thought she was going to cry. "First aid training," she finally managed. Which was true, although it had been years and years ago that she'd taken the course. She'd probably be able to manage bandaging the simple cut on her thigh, though. She was just starting to notice the pain in any big way; it couldn't be that bad.

"Good," said the robot—Autobot—and he did sound relieved. How odd. He stood, towering above her even more than he had been, then turned to walk in the direction Sunstreaker had gone. "I'm going to kill that fragger," he muttered to himself. The yellow twin had _not_ made a good impression.

Bec picked her way over the rough ground limping slightly and hardly able to see anything—let alone the ground—through the thick dusk. Reaching a small stand of trees, all the cover she was going to get, Bec slipped out of her jeans quickly and as stealthily as she could, wincing as it pulled at her now-throbbing cut. Damping down a piece of bandaging with the liquid, she dabbed gingerly at the sticky blood surrounding the mouth of the wound. It didn't hurt nearly as much as she expected it to. In fact, as she even-more-carefully worked bits of gravel and dirt out of the cut itself, it seemed to go blissfully numb. A little bit more than just an antibiotic, then.

Working quickly, aware of the people still milling around—not to mention the robots—and the growing chill, Bec bandaged the cut and pulled her pants back on. Tentatively, she walked over to rejoin the main group.

"Oh, good, there you are," said Judy, sounding only slightly distracted. "Would you mind helping Bobby and Glen pack up the picnic things? I wouldn't ask, normally, but I think it's time to go and I can't do it myself immediately. Optimus?"

"—Yes, Mrs. Witwicky?"

"_Judy_. Although 'Mrs. Witwicky' is better than my _full_ name… Anyway. I was going to see about assigning Bec to Jazz, or Jazz to Bec, however you want to think about it, but it seems he's already slipped Ratchet's lead and left with the Secretary of Defense. I can probably put her up at my house for a while, but my couch will get old quickly, and I think she might want a little privacy at this point. Am I right, Bec?" The girl nodded agreement, looking even more dazed than she had been earlier. "Alright. Just keep the matter in mind, please—although I suppose Lord knows you've got enough to think about already."

"Sorry to interrupt," came Sideswipe's voice from a little ways away. He didn't sound particularly sorry. "But there's been a bit of an accident." In fact, he sounded slightly gleeful.

"…What _sort_ of accident?" asked Optimus, sounding as if he had a guess as to what sort of problem it was, and that he was hoping that he was wrong.

"Ironhide got one of the human vehicles with his cannon. Kind of took out another one with it. And Sunny stepped on another one."

"Honey?" called Ron, his voice penetrating the surrounding darkness.

"Yes, dear?"

"The Honda's a total loss."

Judy looked back up at Optimus. "And I—we—will also need someone to get us all home in the first place. Six of us aren't going to fit into Ron's Truck and Bumblebee."

oOo

Bec felt tired beyond exhaustion. She'd found a rock to sit on for a few minutes, and it was cold, hard and unpleasantly irregular, and she _still_ kept on snapping out of a momentary dazes she couldn't remember falling into in the first place.

Judy's voice clearly snapping out an "Oh, _damn_," jolted her out of it momentarily.

"What?" Miles said in response, surprised and a little frightened by Judy's lapse. It took a hell of a lot to faze that woman, he knew.

"Ron and Trent left in Ron's truck—which wouldn't be a big problem, but I wanted to give Bec the chance to go home in a car that wasn't an Autobot. She'll have to go with Bee, instead."

"I know _I'm_ ready to head back," said Miles, sounding exhausted.

"Alright, then," said Judy decisively. "We'll just have to make do with what we have. Bec, you can head home with Bumblebee and Miles, and Sam and I can go with… Sideswipe." Who was the only mech left except for Optimus Prime, who just wasn't subtle enough to ferry around humans to residential areas.

Bec nodded, not happy to be getting back into one of the Autobots, but not wanting to argue and needing, desperately, time to think and someplace to sleep. Blearily, she stuck the last of the picnic into the final bag and carried over to the waiting, apparently innocuous, car. The trunk popped open for her as she approached, making the woman jump.

Hesitantly, she shuffled the bag into place, shifting around all the other things filling the small space to make it fit, and then went around to the front, hesitating, not sure what to say or do. A teenage boy—Miles, she thought—was already waiting in the front seat; as she slowed, not sure what she should be doing, the driver's door opened. Hesitantly, Bec slid inside and fastened her seat belt.

Just like with Sunstreaker, the car started on its own and did the driving for her. Except for the crunch of tires over gravel, it was unnervingly quiet. That wasn't helping Bec's nerves, and she tried to calm herself down, slow her racing pulse a little.

Miles looked like he was more than half asleep: slowly, his head drooped lower and lower until Bumblebee hit a pot hole and he collided painfully with the window.

"Nnngh," he said, rubbing at the bump, voice a little hoarse with sleep. "Where are we?"

"Half an hour," said Bumblebee, voice sounding tight, strained and staticky. Bec jumped a little. She half-wanted to ask a question—what was wrong with his voice? Sunstreaker had sounded _metallic_, but…

She didn't say anything, though.

But Miles did. "Sam told me he—Bumblebee—got injured in a battle a while ago and his voice-not-box because he's not _human,_ duh, Miles, think, for god's sake, but his voice got damaged or something, and for a long time he couldn't speak at all and even now it can give him trouble."

"Oh." Idly, Bec rubbed at a spot on her neck—it was sore, too many days in a car, a Transformer, with a seatbelt edge that dug into her neck—and then fiddled briefly with a strand of hair.

There was a brief stutter of static, and the sound system turned on, LED display bright in the darkness, with no streetlights on the deserted road they were on, or even other headlights. "Relax, take it easy—" crooned the singer.

"_Mika?_" muttered Miles, sounding vaguely unnerved. Then, louder, "Well, that would explain why the radio was always acting up back when I thought you were just a car… And why Sam would always try to kick surreptitiously at… you, I guess, whenever it happened."

There was a vaguely affirmative beep. Despite herself, Bec relaxed a little. _This_ Autobot just wasn't as… Threatening.

And she was so tired…

oOo

"So," said Judy firmly, lips thinned and face set. "You're Sideswipe."

"Yeah," came the reply. Sideswipe's tone was light, unconcerned, and straddling the fine line between informal and disrespectful.

"Sunstreaker's… 'Twin.'"

"You humans don't really have a word for it. It's like being… Connected. We're partially the same person."

"I _see._" She probably didn't, actually, not completely, Judy knew, but she could puzzle out the finer details of the matter later. "Does this mean you're likely to scare the spit out of some poor innocent as well?"

There wasn't any answer. Sam was _almost_ sympathetic—his mother had raised him, after all—but not quite.

"We're not identical," said Sideswipe carefully. "I'm my own person."

"Good to hear." Wow—his mom really wasn't giving an inch. Sam was impressed, quite frankly.

"…And Sunstreaker's kind of an asshole."

Judy snapped. "That's one way to put it! The girl—young woman—was literally sick with fear! She couldn't eat! And that's nothing compared to the asthma attacks, which your _brother_—" her tone was scathing "—did nothing to discourage! From the sounds of things, he actively _en_couraged it! That's not asshole behavior, it's sociopathy!" She paused to draw in a breath of air, as if to start speaking again, but sighed instead. Sideswipe started to speak, but Judy overrode him.

"You think I haven't heard from my own son how he met the Autobots? He was cornered by a homicidal Decepticon in the first few days, and Bumblebee _still_ managed to be more comforting than your brother all on his own—and Bumblebee couldn't speak!"

"I'm right here, Mom," Sam said, sounding almost amused. Judy ignored him.

"_I_ was introduced to the Autobots, and it was marginally horrifying, but they all did their best to make me as comfortable as possible, considering the circumstances! Miles and even Trent have adapted better than Bec has, and their first inkling of the existence of you Transformers at all was being attacked by a rogue police car! Even Ironhide did a better job introducing himself to Sarah Lennox!"

"Look, lady, it's _not my fault_. I'm not Sunstreaker, I'm not responsible for his behavior and, Pit, even I think he was out of line—and not because he was breaking regulations, that's just the extra bit of _stupid_ on top of the whole thing. He has a _lot_ to answer for…"

To start with, Sideswipe had recorded this whole conversation to play back for his _dear_ brother when they had time.

Judy subsided for the time being, although she still looked distinctly disapproving.

oOo

Sunstreaker was unhappy. The Autobot behind him—Ironhide—was tailgating. The Autobot in front of him, Ratchet, was refusing to speed up and, after the first time he'd tried it, had informed him, in no uncertain terms, that he was _not_ going to be allowed to pass. The order had been backed up by Optimus Prime, who had _helpfully_ reminded him that he was on probation. And then his brother had commed him to swear him out. And then Bumblebee, the little spy, had informed him that if he even _thought_ of treating the two organics who were his charges, or any of the other humans connected to the Autobots, the way he had treated Bec, they wouldn't find enough recognizable parts for Ratchet to be able to put him back together. Ratchet had piped up to say that there was no guarantee he'd want to try at all.

Finally, Optimus Prime had issued a few warnings and the others had backed off a little, and Sunstreaker had been left alone to bask in a little peace and quiet.

Unfortunately, all he seemed capable of doing was brooding.

Alright, he'd been pretty slagging nasty to the organic, even if she had been unpleasantly crazy and then annoyingly prone to panicking. And just…

So she wasn't that bad. She'd never used him for reproductive behavior or eaten in him, just dragged around uprooted bits of damp vegetation. And she hadn't washed him even when he was _filthy_, and she had insulted his color on several occasions, and…

But she hadn't… She had…

Autobots didn't breathe. They had no equivalent, far as Sunstreaker knew. There were ventilation systems, yeah, to help with overheating, but they weren't particularly necessary, let alone regularly used. They didn't eat, not the way humans did, either. They had no equivalent for vomiting—a reflex that, originally, got rid of potentially toxic substances that had been ingested, although apparently _some_ humans didn't seem to realize that. Nerves—the useless organic didn't even have properly functional systems.

Although the malfunctions had been his fault.

Or—no, it was just as much her organic progenitor, who had 'given' him to her. And the Decepticons for forcing him to reveal his presence instead of just disappearing some night, after he'd heard from Sideswipe. And Sideswipe himself, for not finding Optimus Prime and the other Autobots fast enough, making him need to collect a driver and go in search of him.

No, that was stupid. It really was just him—and the organic—who were responsible. Even Sideswipe thought so, and Sunstreaker _knew_ him—and had, when they had been close enough to 

each other, back at the lookout, felt a certain amount of anger and disgust radiating from him. Directed at Sunstreaker.

Slag.

He needed to _fight_ something. …And if Ironhide tried tailgating again, it was going to be _him_.

oOo

Bec was in bed at eleven and slept until noon the next day, before she managed to drag herself awake, mostly because the sun was getting in her eyes—the Witwicky living room couch wasn't all that comfortable, either, although it was better than a car seat, and _anything_—or nothing—was better than Sunstreaker.

The yellow Autobot from the night before, the striped one—Bumblebee; the name was bizarrely, inappropriately apt—was sitting in the driveway, but other than that, the house seemed to be deserted. Judy had left a note on the table: _Bec, I'm out with the boys—help yourself to anything you want to eat, and if you want to go anywhere, ask Bumblebee. Do whatever you feel like doing. –Judy_

She found herself some toast—she'd never really liked cereal—and an apple, suddenly hungry again, and then wandered out into the garden. Green growing things always relaxed her…

At first, she just wandered around, looking at the beds and inspecting few plants—Judy had founds some truly spectacular rose varieties, even if they weren't their best in this climate—but it was hard to not want to get her fingers in the dirt.

…And no sane gardener would turn down free weeding, right? So it was fine if she did some. She could just avoid all the marginal weeds. She had California poppies in her own gardens, after all, and Bec knew that most people didn't weed out daisies with the single-minded hatred that she did.

oOo

When Judy pulled into her driveway, Jazz behind her, she hadn't expected to find one of her house guests waist-deep in dirt and weeds—her shirt, which had been a nice shade of light blue, was beyond recovery, absolutely covered in grass stains, mud and one patch that looked suspiciously like dead aphids, and what she could see of the jeans were worse—but actually smiling. A really happy smile, something she hadn't seen from her, yet.

That faded, though, as Judy walked over to look at what she'd done, to be replaced with something that clearly had a lot of embarrassment to it, but was something else as well. Judy guessed that it was Bec's interpretation of the emotion that accompanies a reality check. The girl—young woman—couldn't ignore what had happened forever.

"Sorry," Bec said, cheeks warm with embarrassment. "I didn't…" She scrambled to stand up, hands wringing nervously.

"No, no, I should be thanking you!" Judy said immediately, because it was true. "I've been so busy lately I've been neglecting things horribly—I'm sure you can tell!"

Bec protested, of course—manners were important—and, gradually, the two women made their way inside.

An hour later, Bec was back outside, to pick up the now-wilted weeks (she'd forgotten them) and do some watering. It was a hot day, and the newly-turned-over soil would pick it up nicely, and after having their roots disturbed, the other plants could use it. She wondered if Judy kept any mulch on hand…

This time, Beck couldn't have—and didn't try to—keep her thoughts at bay. She needed to face things, after all…. And last night, hadn't her only wish (after sleep) been to have the time to think?

And now she actually had it.

…So. Aliens _were_ real, after all. At least, in the form of giant alien robots, they were. That was… It _would_ have been interesting and slightly unnerving, but it was just kind of horrifying. Because of Sunstreaker. And because she was involved. She'd never _asked_ for this. She'd never asked for much of anything, other than having a… Normal life. More normal, at least. She'd liked being almost entirely alone, which was a little weird, and she wanted the chance to garden, which was strange for someone in their early twenties, especially, but less weird. Other than that, though…

Once she graduated, she could work as a garden designer and she'd work instead of living off of her parents' money, and she'd never be rich but she'd be _happy_, and nobody would ever notice her passing them in the street, because she wouldn't be in magazines as part of the upper-class party circuit, or wearing custom-made ultrafashionable designer clothing, or driving a, a startlingly bright yellow Lamborghini.

It had been years since she'd really wanted to change the world. Once hopeless idealism wore out and reality—and realism—set in, Bec had accepted that very few people were going to be earth-shakers, and most people were just going to be background, within the range of 'normal,' and she was one of them. Simply… Average.

People would probably tell her that that was a defeatist's view. Maybe it was.

She'd graduate and design pretty gardens and retire and die, and nobody would remember her except for maybe a few other gardeners. She'd be happy with that. When she inherited after her father's death, she'd probably donate most of the money, anonymously, to some charity or another. The business would go to her sister—certainly not to her, and her brother had no head for business.

But…

…but now she was around _heroes_. People—and not-people—who had made a difference, even though a lot of them were ordinary, except for that they'd found the strength to save the world. Sam; Mikaela; William Lennox, the captain, and his other team members; Maggie and Glen—although they hadn't really been average to start with.

The Autobots.

Not… Not Sunstreaker, or his 'brother,' but the others. They had all risked their lives to save the world. Which mean saving _her_, and her mother, her father, her brother and sister. They'd risked their lives to save every person she knew, and every other person there was, sight unseen. They weren't even the same _species_. They weren't even both _carbon-based_. Biologically, she had more in common with phytoplankton than she did with any of them.

All she'd ever wanted was normalcy. Maybe to fight for that, once she'd been thrust out of it… Maybe, that was selfish.

She wasn't a soldier. She wasn't a hacker. The only 'gifts' she had were a good head for Latin, provided she studied, and a knack for leaf-shape recognition. And a fear of the Autobots that surpassed anyone else's.

…She'd go home, once this was all over. Before it was. She wasn't a hero.

And she couldn't fail her classes, after all, and she hadn't brought the work with her. She didn't want the last of her spring lettuce to bolt before she could eat it.

oOo

Mikaela wasn't shocked to find the kitchen empty when she walked in, first thing in the morning, but was kind of surprised that it looked like everybody else had already eaten. She was an early riser—her grandmother always called her a morning lark—so it was still a little bit before eight, and they'd gotten back pretty late the night before.

Mikaela shrugged mentally—oh, well—and found herself a bowl of cereal.

Mikaela decided to straighten up the kitchen a little—after all, Mrs. Roring (not Whitman, she needed to remember that; Judy had told her that she was Glen's _maternal_ grandmother, after all) was putting up with a number of 'houseguests,' including Ratchet, who was hardly inconspicuous in a civilian driveway… And that was _after_ she'd been forced to follow her grandson across the country when the government had asked him to move closer to the Autobot project—she was too old to live alone. The least Mikaela could do is try to make things a little easier for her.

So she was up to her elbows in soapy water when Maggie and Glen walked in, looking like they'd just finished working out, or something like that, sweaty and exhausted.

"Ratchet made us go running," Maggie explained, collapsing into a chair. "Glen—okay, fine, obesity is a serious health problem—"

"Hey!"

"—but why _me?_"

"It's probably good for you," Mikaela pointed out.

"I'm a computers specialist! A _good_ one! Last I checked, that didn't involve needing to meet any physical standards. –And why didn't he make _you_ go with us?"

"I go to the gym almost every day," Mikaela said. "So does Sam. We both figured it was a good idea, after Mission City. Anyways, I'm going to start studying Autobot medicine with Ratchet, and most parts are pretty big, compared to me—they're not going to be easy to lift."

Maggie muttered something that sounded uncomplimentary, although it was hard to tell, with her face buried in her arms.

"Six-thirty AM is a godless hour," Glen announced, sitting down across from her with a bowl of yogurt. "Which is perfect—Ratchet is clearly some satanic minion."

Mikaela choked on her laughter. "He's not that bad," she protested, biting her lip.

"Yes, he is," Maggie said firmly, Glen nodding his agreement. "Just you wait."

"Fine," Mikaela said. She was fighting a losing battle. "Ratchet might or might not be of satanic origin. So, what do we do today?"

"I've got a new firewall that needs testing!" Glen said enthusiastically. Maggie's expression brightened considerably.

Mikaela groaned. Maybe Bumblebee would be able to pick her up—then she could spend the day with him and Sam, and probably Miles, Trent (which was a pity, but couldn't be avoided…) and possibly Jazz. At least none of _them_ would be talking about complex computer-things she couldn't hope to understand.

oOo

Bec's cell phone was currently in Oregon, three states away.

She'd left it on purpose, not wanting to have the temptation of being able to call someone. She hadn't wanted to give Sunstreaker a reason to do—

Regardless, now she didn't have it. She wanted to call her Dada, just to talk to him. She wanted to call her mom, to listen to her pointless gossip and to ask her to call the gardener her Dada had hired, and make sure nothing too horrible happened to her garden while she was gone.

As things were, she couldn't. She didn't want to ask Judy if she could use her phone—she was imposing enough as things were.

Maybe she could find a phone card in town. Yes, that was a good idea.

"Judy?" she said quietly, walking into the kitchen, where the woman was busy with something complicated-looking—she kept on cross-referencing through the stacks of papers spread out around her, and then scribbling notes.

"Yes, dear?" she replied, looking up and smiling in her direction.

"I'm going to go for a walk. Can I pick up anything for you while I'm out?"

"Oh, that's so sweet of you, to think of me! No, I think I'm fine, but thanks for asking. Oh, wait, could you pick up a loaf of bread? If it's not too much trouble. Just a second, I'll give you some money—oh, and before I forget—I meant to ask you already, but I forgot—do you have a cell?"

"Yes," said Bec. "But it's in Oregon. I didn't… Want to…"

Judy tried to hide her frown. "Hmm," she said, as non-judgmentally as she could manage. Bec seemed to be the sort of person who hated conflict, even when none of it involved her. She really did need to have a _chat_ with Sunstreaker, though—it probably wouldn't be too hard to convince Jazz to let her use his radio. Even Bumblebee probably would, at this point—he took his role as a guardian seriously. "Well, that's too bad—I think it's a good idea for you to have some way of getting in touch with people, when you're on your own, what with the Decepticons targeting people connected to the Autobots—which you really are now. I'm sorry…"

"Maybe it'll turn out for the best," said Bec, looking up suddenly to meet Judy's eye, smiling a little—but it was only a smile because it wasn't anything else, Judy thought. It was an odd expression, accepting and scared and maybe hopeful but just as much—or maybe more—despairing and probably confused (who wouldn't be?) and definitely tired.

Poor girl. At least she seemed to have stopped rejecting everything connected to the Autobots—especially her role in the proceedings—automatically.

"Anyway," Judy said, suddenly aware that she'd let the silence drag on too long. "Here, take my cell—and if there's anyone you want to call, use the house phone, okay? If there's an emergency, just press and hold number two—that'll call the Autobots, they'll show up even if you aren't able to say anything. Oh, and here's some money for the bread."

"Thank you," said Bec, looking down again. She hesitated, as if she was going to say something else—Judy thought about pressing her, then decided that it might end up discouraging instead of encouraging her. Finally, looking hesitant, the girl—young woman—spoke up. "Do… Could I call my d—my father? I can pay for the cost, because it's long-distance—"

oOo

Bec wished the phone wasn't cordless, so she'd have something to fiddle with while she was waiting for someone—probably her Dada's secretary—to pick up on the other end.

She really was glad that she'd asked to call. She probably should have waited for a phone card, but the little corner store that served the suburb the Witwicky's lived in didn't look like it carried much—it would be kind of a long shot. And she really hadn't wanted to wait any longer, even though there wasn't any reason for her not to. And Judy had _offered_.

But she felt bad that she'd also insisted that Bec not pay her anything for the call. She was already another body in the already overfull house—the Witwickys were feeding and housing three extra people now, two of them teenage boys, and that didn't include the Autobot in their driveway—did they need gas to run? Or something like that? They probably needed _some_ sort of fuel… Unless they'd somehow managed to solve the energy crisis. Which was also breaking some sort of scientific law, Bec thought, based on her vague memories of freshman year high school chemistry.

"Hello, you've reached the office of—"

"I'm his daughter, Bec," she said, interrupting him, then feeling bad about it—it was rude. She shouldn't have. She did her best to think about things like that.

"I'll put you through, ma'am."

This time she watched her manners. "Thank you," she said quietly.

There were a few moments of silence—her father would never tolerate background music for a phone on hold—and then she heard his voice.

"Hello?"

"Dada!" she said.

"Bec!" he said, clearly thrilled to hear from her. "My little girl! How are you doing? Did you hear? Your sister said she hadn't gotten in touch with you when we talked this morning—"

"Hear what?"

"Don't worry, nothing too bad—but the garage was broken into. Well, actually, it was almost half-destroyed, like someone tore the top off of it—and there are the damndest marks in the lawn 

from whatever sort of machine they used to do it with, almost like giant footprints. I'm telling you, Bec, we'll have conspiracy theorists and UFO-hunters showing up any day now. It's the damndest thing, I'm telling you—"

Bec leaned back against her chair, feeling weak. Giant footprints?

How could you tell your father 'I know what caused it—robotic alien life forms. One of their counterparts just kidnapped me…'?

They'd gone after her father. At least he was still alive.

He'd been so close to dying, and she _hadn't known it._ She'd almost died too, the night before, but that was… Different.

She'd thought her Dada was indestructible, when she'd been younger. She still thought that, in a way. She couldn't imagine him just laying down and dying.

She'd been so close to needing to bury him.

…But she couldn't think about it now. Finish the conversation, she told herself. Think about this later. When you have the time. When it'll be okay if you start crying.

oOo

Bec was trembling a little as she came into the kitchen, blank faced, and put the phone down on the bale with too-careful movements, as if she was needing to think, hard, about each physical action.

Her body was buzzing with tension again. She felt very tired, but only faintly—she felt as if her consciousness had been removed from her body, and the two parts were communicating from opposite ends of a very long, empty hallway.

"What's wrong?" Judy asked, looking up with sudden concern spreading quickly across her face. "Bec—has something happened?"

Bec sat down and then swallowed hard, twice, trying to find her voice. "I think my father was attacked by Decepticons," she said, voice raw.

"Oh my God—Is… Is everyone okay?"

"Yes," Bec said, looking over, trying to remind herself that nothing had happened, that her father was fine. "It—He said someone broke into the garage, forced the roof open and left—left what looked like giant footprints in the yard."

Judy clucked to herself, letting the other woman bury her face in her shoulder and cry while she hugged her closely.

"How did you get him?" Judy asked. "Sunstreaker, I mean." She needed to get all the information she could, then get in touch with the Autobots.

"My—he was a gift from my father," Bec said, surprised enough by the apparent incongruity of the question to answer unthinkingly, unflinchingly.

"I should have realized," Judy said immediately, suspicions answered. "I should have—your father bought the car, and I bet there's something somewhere on some computer with Internet access, some piece of information, that ties it to him—"

"The paint was custom," Bec interjected, eyes downcast. "You can't—not that exact color."

"I bet the Decepticons were looking for Sunstreaker. That means they know his alt. form at the very least—maybe license plates, too, if we're unlucky. It's not exactly an every-day car, is it?"

"Oh God," Bec said. "He was… My father—"

"I know," Judy said soothingly. "but at least they know he's not there. They won't go looking again. And your father's still alive…"

oOo

"Here," Judy said, handing the phone to Bec. "Captain Lennox wants to ask you a few more questions."

"Alright," said Bec meekly. Then, to Will, "Yes? May I help you?"

"Well, yes—first off, I'd like to apologize. This never should have happened."

"I understand—It's okay," Bec said softly.

"—Great," said Will. "But would you mind speaking a little louder? I'm having a hard time hearing you. It's a madhouse over here—you've probably heard, I've got my whole unit over here, and we're just starting lunch—we got a little held up in meetings this morning."

"Okay," Bec said. She made an effort to speak up. "Is… Is there anything else?"

"An address and phone number for your father, and—let's see—his full name," Will continued.

"Alright—Thirty-four—"

"Hand on a second, I need a pad of paper—There! Okay, would you mind repeating that?"

Bec rattled off the information, then tried to answer a few more questions—she didn't have the answers to any of them; her father hadn't told her much in terms of specifics. She figured the whole matter was in the government's hands, now.

"Do _you_ have any questions?" Captain Lennox said at last. "Anything I can answer for you, or ask someone else to answer? Anything I can do?"

"I—" Bec bit hard on her lip. She didn't…

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

So maybe she was useless. It was her fight now anyways. And it never hurt to try.

_Right?_

oOo

Bec was prying dandelions out of the lawn—she needed _something_ to do, after all—with a dibber (1) and humming tunelessly to herself when Judy found her that afternoon. It was her third day at the Witwicky house.

"Hello," Bec said as the older woman approached, shifting so she was sitting back on her haunches and looking up at her, shading her eyes with one hand against the bright summer sun.

"Hi," Judy replied. "You know, you don't need to do this—I can't imagine weeding a lawn is any fun—even Ron avoids it, and he's devoted to that grass."

'I like to keep busy," Bec explained, standing up so she was on a more equal footing with Judy and clasping her hands together to try and wring off some of the dust. "And really, it's not too odious a chore. It gives me something to do."

Judy shook her head. "I can't imagine what you _would_ consider an 'odious chore,' then."

"Algebra," said Bec promptly, ducking her head to hide a smile. Judy laughed.

"I never disliked algebra all that much—I liked math class. It wasn't my favorite subject, but wasn't chemistry or biology—I hated them. Of course, I haven't used any of those since before I graduated college, so the teachers were wrong there—and that was the main complaint against math classes that I remember."

"I liked bio," Bec said. "It was a class where I could get my hands dirty. I've always liked that." She held out her hands demonstratively: they were still stained with mud, dandelion sap and pollen and green residue from the grass.

"Well, I can understand that," Judy responded. "Anyway, I wanted to know if you'd like to come into town with me this afternoon—I've got a few chores to do, which isn't all that exciting, I 

know, but I could show you around Tranquility. If you want to stay, the boys will be spending the afternoon hanging out around the house—and Sam was saying something about how Mikaela might be coming over, too, if she can talk Ratchet into giving her a ride."

Bec hesitated.

"There's a new nursery that's just opened I've been thinking of visiting, too," Judy continued, pulling out her figurative trump card.

"Yes, please," Bec said. "I'd like to go. I think it sounds wonderful."

oOo

Bec was quietly nervous as she delicately pulled open Bee's passenger-side door and perched on the seat.

She couldn't slow her heartbeat, though, and Bumblebee was used to tracking the vital signs of the people riding in him, out of habit—it was a good way to keep track of certain moods and emotions.

And Judy was picking up on Bec's mood, too. She thought that she didn't realize how differently she talked when she was afraid: she was always quiet and unobtrusive, but now she was almost whispering, hardly spoke at all and looked as if she was trying to pull in on herself until she disappeared.

Judy thought that she should probably feel guilty for encouraging Ron to take the truck that morning. It left them with only Bumblebee—and Jazz, who'd been planning to drop in later, or any other Autobots that happened to drop by and were willing to play chauffer—for transport.

Bec did need to adjust to them, though, and by now she'd had a few days to calm down and think things over—and to distance her from her first exposure to the Autobots, which had been so shatteringly calamitous. Judy thought so, at least, although apparently Will thought that she was overreacting a little—not that he thought it wasn't reasonable for her to feel panicky, just that she had taken things _too_ far. Either way, Bumblebee was probably the best 'bot to start her on: he was friendly and approachable, and the closest in 'age' to the young woman. Jazz was also friendly and younger—and even more outgoing—but he could be intimidatingly Machiavellian, and had a weakness for head games—_not_ something Bec needed, although there was a chance she would be particularly susceptible to them. She wasn't very confident, very sure of herself.

It was odd, watching her retreat back into her shell, like a prodded snail—in this case, the prod being Autobots, wielded by Judy herself.

Well, she'd need to fix that.

"I'm not sure you've been introduced—Bec, this is Bumblebee. Bee, Bec."

"Nice to meet you," said the car cheerily. Silently, Judy thanked him for having the social grace to pretend that nothing was abnormal about the situation.

"N—Nice to meet you too," Bec breathed, eyes darting nervously around the interior of the Autobot, trying to find something to address, some equivalent of a face—Judy could sympathize with the problem. She was also sure that Bec had only managed to say that much because the words were automatic: she didn't need to think about them.

After a few minutes of uninterrupted silence, Judy elbowed the car door as unobtrusively as possible--making sure that Bec, who was looking out the window at the passing roadside—didn't notice, to try to get Bumblebee to try and start a conversation.

"I'm sorry you had to deal with Sunstreaker," he said finally. "I promise you that the rest of us are nothing like that."

Bec's breath hitched a little oddly in her throat. Judy understood.

"I'm sure Sunstreaker didn't help with anything—" Judy was damn sure, in fact "—But all of you can be a little intimidating, you know, Bumblebee. And not everyone wants to jump head-first into adventure."

"Yes," Bec said softly. When Judy looked encouragingly at her, clearly hopeful, she added a little bit onto her original statement—or word. "I've always been a homebody."

"—_I don't want to see a ghost: it's the sight I fear most.__I'd rather eat a piece of toast and watch the evening news—"_ (2) played the radio.

Bec looked blank for a few minutes, surprised, before she started giggling, and then outright laughing. She was positively shaking with hilarity.

"So what was all that about?" Judy asked as Bec finished, but she was smiling.

"The lyrics," Bec replied, biting back another giggle. "Is—Is that a real song?"

"Yes." Bumblebee had replied, that time, and Judy was heartened by Bec's more-relaxed reaction: she was still far from calm, but it was better. Much better.

oOo

"So, you'll be willing to help me get these in the ground?" Judy asked as the two of them stood in line with a wagon—this nursery's answer to shopping carts—half-full of plants.

"Of course," Bec said. "But—the _car_—"

At least she'd had the sense to be discreet, Judy thought to herself. This wasn't a secret that needed to be shouted from the rooftops. Not yet, at least, although there was a good chance that 

it was just a matter of time before video footage of one Autobot or another hit the Internet, at which point the government would need to end up doing some frantic backtracking.

"It won't be a problem," she said cryptically. "I've got drop-cloths, but even if I didn't, I don't think he'd object."

"Oh," Bec said, looking at her wide-eyed, as if she'd been surprised.

—Oh. Judy could guess. She'd press her for details in a few minutes, in the car.

The two women pulled the plants back out to the car, and Judy loaded them into Bee's trunk while Bec returned the wagon. The two—the woman and the Autobot—were waiting for her when she returned.

"Sorry to keep you waiting," she said quietly as she ducked down into her seat and pulled on her seatbelt.

"So," Judy said, without preamble. "What you were saying about plants in cars?"

Bec was silent.

"Well, dirt in the upholstery _can_ be kind of unpleasant," Bumblebee said, a little doubtfully. "Especially when you're new. Earth is really… Different. Although if you put down some sort of cover and don't leave the plants in there too long, it really shouldn't be a problem—"

"It was when I—didn't know," Bec said abruptly, hands on her thighs, palm down with the fingers digging into her legs, and hunched over, curling in on herself. "I was… I didn't know… Really. It doesn't matter."

And it didn't, or at least it shouldn't. That was thing, Judy thought. But on top of everything else Sunstreaker had done, it _did_.

She made a mental note to track down Jazz soon. She needed to talk to him. She should probably wait a while to talk to Sunstreaker—which didn't necessarily mean she would. Just that it would be for the better if she did.

oOo

After Bec had expressed an interest in seeing the desert—not something she was particularly interested in, herself—Judy had gotten an idea. It had been remarkably easy to set up, too, although the guide to local plantlife had been a little hard to track down—she didn't think much of the near-by bookstores.

All it had taken, really, other than that, was a call to Jazz.

oOo

Bec wasn't sure how she'd ended up in the Autobot called Jazz, the two of them speeding out into the desert. She tried to concentrate on calming her pulse and keeping her breathing slow and natural. It was completely silent inside the car, with only the noises of tires on the road and the wind rushing past them to interrupt it, until Jazz spoke.

"So, an Irishman, a Scotsman and an Englishman walk into a bar." There was a brief pause. "You'd think one of them would have seen it."

Bec stared uncomprehendingly at the dashboard for a long minute, thrown off by the sheer incongruity, before she giggled, and then started laughing.

When she'd finally quieted—although she was still smiling, just barely—Jazz spoke again.

"Okay, so I know I'm funny, but I didn't think you'd find the joke all _that_ hilarious."

"Maybe I just needed to laugh," Bec said quietly, sounding almost shy.

"I find it usually helps," Jazz said happily. "And you've had a rough couple of days—I'm sorry about that, for what it's worth."

"Thank you." Bec's voice had gone even quieter.

"T'be honest? It was nice to see you smile. The other times I've seen you, you've looked down-right miserable."

"It's been—hard." Her smile was gone again, and she was almost whispering. Jazz wasn't sure what to say to that, because it was true, what with Sunstreaker and her father and how she'd been surprised and then almost attacked by a Decepticon—and he was pretty sure that a second joke would be inappropriate. Even if the joke itself wasn't. Before he could come up with something, Bec surprised him.

"You're very—very different," she said carefully, looking away at the emptiness they were passing through.

"Should I be insulted?"

Bec let out another surprised giggle. "I wouldn't be," she said hesitantly, not wanting to actually give offense, and still so unsure of what the boundaries were in this new game of social interaction.

"Have to say, if it's Sunshine I'm being compared to, I'm not too unhappy that we're coming across pretty differently. The mech's an ass—I am _not_ looking forward to serving as commanding officer for him _or_ his brother, but Sideswipe at least has _boundaries_—I think…"

"Commanding officer?" Bec parroted back.

"Hm? Oh, yeah—I'm Optimus' second-in-command."

Well. That was—unnerving, Bec thought, eyes wide.

"Hey, whoa there—don't go taking me too seriously, now!"

Bec didn't respond verbally, but gave a quick twitch of a smile, a brief moment when her face lost the too-serious half-scared expression she usually seemed to wear.

A few long, silent minutes, Bec spoke up again. "J—Jazz?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank—Thank you for taking me out here. I know it's kind of… weird, and probably boring for you, and you doubtless have more important things to be working on—"

"Hey, careful with the assumptions! You know what people say about them. I got no problems with helping you get around—and I haven't tried anything like this little trip yet, so I don't know if it'll be boring or not. And more important things to do—nah, just paperwork. People, even if they're organic, are _always_ more important than glorified secretary duty—which is what being second in command means, y'know."

Bec laughed a little again, but the noise was weak and nervous.

"I'm here to help—you got any questions? Any at all? I'll answer 'em for you, best as I can. Helping you get places whenever I'm free—easy. Ask me, and I'll see what I can do."

"Thank you," Bec said, ducking her head. "I will."

Somehow, Jazz doubted that. "Seriously—take me up on this! I warn you, I am damn hard to insult. When I say 'ask me anything,' I mean it."

"Thank you," she repeated, even more quietly.

"'Course, if you're asking questions, I want a chance to ask questions back—an answer for an answer, that sort of thing. That okay?"

"Yes," said Bec, looking up and smiling in the vague direction of the dashboard—which part was the 'face,' the bit you talked to, when they were like this?

"Great—thanks. Can I go first?" Bec nodded a hesitant affirmative, not sure how she'd suddenly been roped into something that seemed oddly reminiscent of games of truth-or-dare in the seventh grade. "Why—No, what makes you so interested in plants?"

Bec shrugged helplessly. "I—I guess I just don't know. But I have, since I grew sunflowers in the grade school—it felt like a miracle, you know, those gorgeous flowers towering above me when I _knew_ they'd just been tiny little seeds a while ago. I loved those plants—sunflower yellow was my favorite color for years." She laughed humorlessly, the sound bitter. "It's how I ended up with—_him_." She fell silent but Jazz didn't speak, so she kept talking, trying to explain herself. "I—I suppose it still feels a little miraculous to me—do you know anything about desert wildflowers? They look as if they're some kind of mistake, some of them look so out-of-place in the midst of all this dry dirt and sand and rock, delicate and exuberant and colorful flowers mixed up in all that brown. Everything out here lives under such harsh conditions—and that's just one example. It's all just _interesting_, too. Farming changed the course of human history."

"I could see that," Jazz said after she'd finished, once it was clear she wasn't going to continue. "It's a world's difference from Cybertron—literally as well as figuratively, I suppose."

"What was… —Cybertron like?"

"Well, in its prime it was the most beautiful planet I've seen—and I've seen a lot…"

oOo

Judy looked up from her notes as a car pulled into the driveway: she smiled as she recognized Jazz. Before she could get up to greet the mech and the girl—young woman—with him, the driver's-side door swung open, Bec stepping out. She paused to say something—_that_ was new, Judy thought, slightly smug but mostly relieved—and smiled slightly before heading towards the patio, where Judy was still sitting. The car door slammed shut behind her and Jazz's holoform flickered into being, as eerily blank-faced as they all were, even with the eyes hidden behind sunglasses—none of the Autobots could manage a good human face, and she doubted the Decepticons could, either.

Judy just had time to wave good-bye before he was gone.

Looking at the still-clearly-happy Bec—who was no longer smiling but still looked as if she might at any minute—she decided she owed Jazz considerably more than a thank-you. Maybe she could talk Ratchet into putting him back on active duty—although she'd been planning to do that anyways.

"How was the desert plant life?" Judy asked as Bec started up the steps.

"Really pretty—there's going to be some kind of cactus blooming tonight. There were lizards, too. It's been too long since the last rain for many flowers, though." She sounded distracted.

"And how was Jazz?" asked Judy calmly, with a slight smile. She hoped it wasn't too much of a cat-in-the-cream grin, although Bec didn't seem to notice it at all. For someone who could pick out an interesting leaf variation from twenty paces, she could be remarkably unobservant.

"Thank you for… Setting me up like that," said Bec suddenly, looking up from the patch of grass she'd been looking at to face the older woman, gaze square. Judy's face went blank with wide-eyed surprise for a quick second before her smile returned—although this time there was a softer edge to it. Maybe she'd been wrong about Bec's apparent obliviousness when it came to other people.

Something Bec saw in Judy's face relaxed her a little, and she turned away again, sitting down in one of the lawn chairs Sam or one of the other boys—probably not Mikaela—had left out. She wasn't sure whether or not Bec was waiting for her to speak up again, to respond, but she was going to reply either way.

"I'm glad it worked out," Judy said at last, thoughtfully and gently. "I thought it would. Jazz is good at… Not calming people down, but putting them at ease. Does that make sense?"

"Yeah," Bec said. "I… Whatever I was expecting, it wasn't that."

Judy laughed. "That's the Autobots in a nutshell. And Jazz too—_especially_ Jazz."

"I know. I still don't know what I would have expected one of them to be like, but… Nothing like that. –He really liked the lizards, you should have heard him when one of them crawled onto his foot to bask."

"The lizards?" Judy asked, amused.

"I think he thought the plants were kind of boring, although he was polite about it, but there were all these lizards zipping around—I think the vibrations from his footsteps disturbed them, something like that." Judy laughed again, and Bec smiled.

"Do you want to meet the others—the other Autobots? I mean _really_ meet them, get to know them a little better…" It was a risky question to ask the woman at this stage, Judy thought, but she hadn't seen the girl look this happy before, let alone without the help of something that could photosynthesize. There was something worrisome about that, and about how shy she was, at her age—even the teenagers put her on edge. So did Judy herself, (although admittedly less so,) for that matter.

"No," said Bec abruptly, standing, the chair scraping across the cement patio as she stood and started pacing, staring almost blankly at the vine growing on a small trellis to one side. "I don't." Then, voice gentler, "But you know? I think I will anyway."

Before Judy could respond, Bec spoke again. "This is mislabeled—it's not a hybrid clematis, it's a _Clematis armandii_, it's going to get too big for this trellis."

"Really?"

oOo

"Hello, Mrs. Witwicky," a voice behind her said as Judy bustled her way across the wide expanse of floor, headed determinedly for the human-sized entrance to the Autobot base, located on the far wall.

"Oh! Optimus—it's good to see you again. How are things going?"

"We're at a loss when it comes to the source of the Decepticon attacks, and we can't seem to find a pattern, but there haven't been many more incidents, and they don't seem to be attacking uninvolved humans. How is Bec doing?"

"Thank heaven for minor mercies, that's what I say. As for Bec—much better, actually. She's no social butterfly—I'd be worried if she was acting like one, or trying to—but she's opened up a little. I'm pretty sure I have Jazz to thank for that—he's the one who opened her up. I don't think Bumblebee really knew how to get around that."

"So _that's_ where he went when he snuck off the base. Ratchet was furious."

"I think he would have snuck away anyways, even if I hadn't asked him to talk to Bec," Judy replied, suddenly privately amused. "He certainly didn't mention he'd been confined to base again—just that he was still on medical leave."

"He strained that seam again," Ratchet said sourly, entering the room. "You know, where I had to weld two halves of him back together. I keep on telling him that a wound like that isn't going to fix itself as quickly or painlessly as a superficial slash will, and it'll take even longer than normal—not that there's anything normal about this situation—because of the strain being dead put on his body and spark—"

Judy laughed. "Has Jazz _ever_ listened to you while he's capable of moving under his own power? From the sounds of things, he hasn't… At least not often."

"He's a worse patient than _Ironhide._"

"At least he's helping Bec adjust," Optimus said, voice quieter but asking for—not demanding—attention. "Sunstreaker's been disciplined, but that doesn't undo the damage he's done."

Judy scowled. "It's good to hear that he's been talked to—I have to say, I keep on having to repress some choice words of my own, when it comes to him. That said, Bec's surprisingly resilient—I think she'll manage."

"Good to hear. –And as for Sunstreaker, he could probably stand to hear certain things another time." His voice was mild as milk.

"Although, so far, he's been talked to by you, Optimus, and Jazz and Captain Lennox; he was given a lecture on human psychology and physiology by me; threatened by Ironhide and probably Bumblebee; and informed of how the United States government looks at the death, 

accidental or otherwise, of humans, or even their torment, by the Keller and a few aides. I think even his brother's upset with him."

Judy smiled, a mean expression—there was very little to do with happiness to it. "Good," she said, somewhat coldly. "Maybe he'll finally get it."

oOo

"I just don't get it," snarled Sunstreaker, pacing across the room he shared with his twin. Sideswipe was sitting, watching him.

"It's not _hard_, glitch-head. This planet currently has a human population six times that of Cybertron in its golden age. And it's a smaller planet. Living here means getting along with organics. When you're kidnapping and terrorizing them, that's _hard to do_. And then they _like_ the humans, Sunstreaker. The crazy one with the guns? He treats a set of humans like they're a group-bond—and I'm not sure the squishies realize that, but he does. And I'm not getting within cannon range of those adolescents Bumblebee's attached himself to, and I'm not even the one he threatened—that would be _you_. Because he's afraid you're going to slag around with them like you did that girl—Bed?—you—"

"Bec," growled Sunstreaker.

"Fine, Bec. The point is, bro, what you did is the stupidest thing _either_ of us have ever done, and that includes that one time. You know which one I'm talking about."

Sunstreaker aimed a solid kick at the door, which rocked back in its frame. "Just—let it go."

"I want to know _what you were thinking!_ They were thiiis close to throwing you in the brig! –And you could have killed the human. Something _easily avoidable_. You know what gets said about you, Sunshine—you want to convince you everyone you actually _are_ a cold-blooded uncontrollable psychopath?"

"You know I'm not." His eyes were dangerously bright, and he was positively shaking with rage.

Sideswipe softened a little. "Yeah, _I_ know. You've convinced at least one human otherwise, and gone a long way towards convincing everyone else on the base, at the very least. And they'd probably have been willing to completely ignore your—our—old record, just dismissed everything on it—a new start. But when even I'm wondering if you've lost it… What was going through your mind? Were you seriously enjoying her fear like that?"

"…Yes." Sunstreaker couldn't miss his brother's disgust at his answer.

Sideswipe didn't respond.

"No. Slag, I don't _know_— She kept on putting slimy organic _things_ in me. And she didn't wash me—it was disgusting—"

"She thought she was going to die. Even when she _wasn't_ choking to death."

"—I didn't know! I just thought… I don't know, but I _didn't know_, alright? And it wasn't even like I did all that much! I stopped threatening her! I started _asking_ her to do things!"

"Really."

"Don't give me that look, you fragger—I _did_. After she… Un-ingested food when I told her to eat. That's all I did then, too! I didn't stuff it down her face, she could have said 'no'…"

"Sunstreaker. Sunny. Sunshine. You are violent, unpleasant and built to kill—you scare your teammates. Sometimes you scare _me_. Bed's a timid organic with a processor prone to malfunctions who didn't even know that anything like you—us—existed before you sprung it on her. _Bumblebee_ freaked out the humans when they first met him, and he's little, friendly and had just _saved their lives_ instead of threatening to step on them or something. _And_ those humans are more out-going, as far as I can tell. What did you expect, someone who treats you like I do? You've had commanding officers too afraid to say 'no' to you."

"But—"

"What, it's okay because she didn't maintain your polish?"

"Bec—not Bed, glitcher—should have taken better care of me—"

"She didn't know you were alive! She had no real reason to!"

The broke off the argument to stare at each other, glowering. The metal of the table Sunstreaker was gripping creaked warningly.

Sunstreaker finally spoke. "Fine. I… Shouldn't have. I—Slag it, I didn't mean to freak her out that badly."

His brother relaxed. "That wasn't too hard to admit, was it?"

"I'm not saying it's _all_ my fault. I'm just saying I… Might have done a few things a little better."

"Hmm. It's a pity she'd probably have a miniature breakdown if you went anywhere near her, and then you'd be shot at by five mechs and a handful of humans bent on revenge. If that wasn't the case, you could apologize."

Sunstreaker stared at him with a what-are-you-_thinking?_ expression stamped on his face.

"Don't look at me like that, I've seen you apologize before: I know you're capable of it—"

"No. No, I'm not."

"Wiseaft."

"Oh, look who's talking!"

oOo

Judy was halfway across the common room when she realized she was being watched. She looked over, staring Sunstreaker, a few Autobot-sized chairs away, straight in the face.

"I hope you're happy with yourself," she said, clearly and calmly, and continued on her way.

After all, she was running late for her meeting with Will—Captain Lennox—and the base was big enough and to a large enough scale that it was hard for humans to manage in.

Sunstreaker didn't respond.

oOo

Trent was still surprisingly polite and well-behaved around Judy, or any of the Autobots, but when Sam's mom wasn't around or there wasn't a clearly visible Autobot in sight, he was starting to revert back to his normal school behaviors.

Sam was really, really sick of it already. Mikaela was furious. Miles was as close to committing homicide as he'd ever been.

"You throw like a girl, Gillon," Trent sneered.

_You are above him. You are above the taunts, the idiocy, the misogyny—_ Miles reminded himself.

"At least I don't scream like one." There went that plan. And bringing in the attack by Barricade was a low blow, he had to admit.

"Either of you keep the sexism up—or hell, any of your attitude in general, especially _you_, Trent—and I get Bumblebee to turn you into jam," Mikaela snarled through gritted teeth.

"I'd take her seriously," Sam added as Bee transformed to poke Miles in the side demonstratively. Trent gulped and backed down. Miles gave it up and laughed.

The five of them had taken a day off to get away: Ratchet had provided the teens who hadn't fit into Bumblebee with a lift up into the mountain they were on—he was free while Maggie and Glen were at the Autobot base—and Ironhide had been reluctantly convinced, or at least argued into, picking them up later. It had been a great opportunity to get out of the Witwicky house, which seemed to be shrinking, rapidly. Unfortunately, the attempt at a friendly game of Frisbee had ended… Badly. Even if you didn't count Miles colliding with Mikaela and accidentally 

groping her when he was trying to get off her. Really, though, the only person who'd been truly embarrassed had been Miles, and the only other person who'd really cared had been Trent. He'd taken full advantage of the lovely opportunity to insult both Miles _and_ Mikaela.

"So what now?" Mikaela asked, flopping down.

"We could eat," Sam said, hopefully.

Miles agreed. "I'm up for that."

"Sure," Trent said, sullenly.

There was an awkward silence.

"Could you please lose the attitude?" Miles said finally. "Yeah, I get it, you could pound me into the ground in a fight or any sport ever invented, but I'm inclined to think that that doesn't necessarily make me a worthless person. And you are being down-right unpleasant, young man, as my mother used to tell me. Er, still tells me, unless last month counts as 'used to.'"

"I'd appreciate it, too," Sam said mildly. "I know you're probably not all that happy—I know _I_ think things could be better. I want my room back, for one—but none of us are, and we're all dealing. And keep in mind that we're trying to keep you safe. I don't want to see you dead, even when you're being an utter ass."

"Yeah," Mikaela said, with considerably more attitude. "And you know what? Insulting my boyfriend or Miles isn't going to make me go running back to you. It's _over_, Trent, I'm not interested. I wouldn't be interested even if you were someone I'd consider dating if I didn't have the perfect boyfriend already—which I do—and you're _not_."

"Ouch," said Miles, with a wince. "That was mean, Mikaela."

"Fine. Sorry, Trent."

"…Fine."

"And I'm pretty sure that 'fine' isn't an acceptable response to 'I'm sorry.'"

"Shut it, Gillon."

"My name is _Miles_. And Trent—there are four people at our school who know about the Autobots. We are the other three. Do you really want to push us away? I know _I_ like having someone to talk to when it comes to this."

"I want to pretend this never happened," Trent muttered. "Just go back to school and the team—Not any of you freaks and the, the robots…"

"Trent," Miles said seriously, looking over at the other boy, waiting until Trent returned the gaze. "This is—our chance to really do something. You seriously want to just let it go? This is _history._"

"…No," Trent said finally. "I'm sorry, okay?"

"Not a problem," said Miles breezily, flopping down again. "Hey, Sam, your mom packed us a picnic, right?"

oOo

Bec wondered where her life had changed. She wondered what _would_ change: where would learning how to get the best tomatoes from the least light fit into the world of giant robots and explosion-filled fights she'd entered?

For that matter, now that she was here, what was _she_ going to do?

Or maybe nothing would change. Everything was different, true, but maybe this would wrap itself up and go home, and everything would return to normal, except for her. And that would fade eventually, or scab over, at least, or maybe just start feeling unreal, like it had never happened.

But who knew? Maybe things really would be different. Right now she couldn't imagine life beyond the next day. Who was to say?

oOo

(1) A dibber is basically a small pointy stick, usually metal in today's world. Fancy versions come with a additions like a handle or a slightly forked end. You use it for weeding. (At least, 'dibber' is the word my research came up with. I would probably refer to it as a pointy tool for weeding, or 'hey, hand me that thing next to trowel, would you?')

(2) From _Life_, by Des'ree. Yes, those seriously are real lyrics.

--End chapter 4--


	5. Chapter 5

**Getting to Know You**

**Chapter Five**

By Dreaming of Everything, betaed by mmouse15

Author's notes: Sorry this is so late! RL is eating me alive. I have no plans to discontinue this story, though! There's one or two more (long) chapters to come, and they'll definitely get written and posted. Probably before the year is out! (I know, I know, that should not be an accomplishment.)

That said, I'm testing out something a little new with the footnotes. I don't know whether you like them or not, but I like putting them in—the trouble is, they are not made for an online format. This chapter I'm trying sticking them between the sections. Do you have any opinions, readers?

* * *

"We're being called into the Autobot base," Judy announced, walking into the kitchen. Her tone was worried. "There's been more sighting of Decepticons—a lot of them. The government's getting worried, and Optimus has decided it's no longer possible to let us try and keep things normal—he says the risk to our lives is too great. Finish dinner and then pack what you need, alright? We leave in an hour, an hour and a half—around then. Barricade's been staking out our region, and Tranquility in particular, so they might need to take the long way around to avoid him."

Trent looked horrified; he didn't have good memories when it came to that Decepticon in particular. Sam clapped him on the shoulder, a little awkward, trying to be reassuring. Trent looked at him, but stayed silent: the other boy appreciated it.

Bec looked blank, withdrawn. She stood without saying a word, scraping the last of her dinner into the kitchen garbage and setting her plate down gently in the sink, wandering out of the room as if in a daze. Judy gave the teenagers a worried look and then hurried after her, calling over her shoulder as she went.

"Sam! Call your father and tell him he needs to get home _now_!"

* * *

Judy caught up with Bec in the garden. The young woman was staring distractedly at a pot of annual flowers, old-fashioned summer things—marigolds, snapdragons, sweet peas. The heliotropes made the cooling air sweet.

"Are you alright?" Judy asked. She thought about reminding her that it wasn't all that bad, that she was getting along well with Jazz and Bumblebee, at least, but didn't. It would be a kind of back-handed insult to the woman, who was by no means stupid. Of course she remembered how she was starting to adjust to the Autobots, starting to grow comfortable with them.

"Yes," Bec said tiredly, absentmindedly starting to pick the dry, dead flowers off of the nearest petunia plant. "I'm fine. I don't think I'm very happy, but—I understand the necessity. It's not—"

She broke off, staring out at the garden for a long, slow minute, then turning to look at a bloom that had faded earlier that day, still colorful and slightly sticky. "I know that there are, um...I know that the Autobots can be nice. I can—adapt to that, to living with them. But...but Sunstreaker—"

"He won't be getting anywhere near you," Judy promised.

"I hope that's enough," Bec replied, biting her lip. "But...

"Thank you, Judy, for everything. You've been—incredible."

"Oh, psh—it's nothing! You're a friend, Bec, not a burden."

* * *

They were a mismatched group, waiting in some vastly over-sized room in the Autobot base. There were a handful of soldiers (Bec assumed there were more, somewhere else) and then other government officials; Mikaela had met up with Sam, who was being shadowed by Miles and Trent; a man she didn't remember (was his name Glen?) was there with an elderly lady who had to be his grandmother; Maggie, with a woman she'd never seen before—the unfamiliar one of the pair looked truly nervous, almost afraid, and Bec could understand; Judy and Ron were talking with a woman who had to be Mikaela's mother; Sarah Lennox was holding her baby and juggling a radio and a bottle full of milk; and then, finally, another person she didn't recognize, a sour-faced man who wouldn't have stood out except that he was standing away from the main group, staring suspiciously at everyone and everything. A lot of people were glaring back.

There weren't any Autobots there, not yet. Bec knew that was going to change. After all, this was—it had to be their home. For some of them, at least.

Maggie was waving at her. Bec smiled shyly, and waved hesitantly back. Maggie waved again in return, gesturing her over, and Bec obeyed, weaving her way through the crowd.

"Bec! How are you? Better, I hope."

"Yes," Bec said. "Much better. I'd have to be." She smiled at her again, shyly. "Judy's been wonderful, and I've been—I've been getting to know some of the Autobots..." She trailed off.

"Fantastic! That's really great to hear, I'd been worried about you—"

"Thank you. How have you been, though?"

"Well, I can't say this whole business doesn't have me worried. Oh! Bec, this is Elizabeth, my girlfriend."

"Oh!" Bec said, surprised—whatever explanation she'd been expecting for the shocked-looking woman's presence, it hadn't been that.

"It's nice to meet you."

"Um, it's my pleasure," Bec replied, reaching out to take the hand she'd been offered; she shook it. Elizabeth's grip was firm, confident, not at all in keeping with the tired anxiousness in her eyes and the weariness, the wariness, in her voice. Bec could sympathize.

"Right—I'm new to all this. Found out yesterday—"

"It was quite the shock," Maggie said dryly. "She was on a business trip."

"And when I got back the apartment was empty. Maggie'd left a note, so I drove over to Glen's house. She asked me if it was okay if we took a drive, and I said sure, even though I was kind of confused. I mean—why not? So then I realized there was an emergency hummer—I didn't even know they made those—in Glen's driveway, so I asked why..."

"And I told her I'd explain if she really wanted to know. I think she thought I was joking—"

"I did."

"—so she said yes, she really did want to know. So I said I'd explain on the drive. I didn't, of course—Ratchet did."

"We drove up to the look-out, and—that transformation thing is just _incredible_, isn't it? That was yesterday, yesterday morning—I think. Ugh, I'm so tired! ...Anyways, that's my story. What got _you_ all mixed up in this?"

Bec paused to collect her thoughts, not sure what to say. "An—Autobot found me," she said lowly. "Or my father accidentally bought one for me, I suppose. He—forced me to drive him to where he could meet up with the Autobots, and then I hung around for a few more days, and that point I was...involved." She shrugged slightly, just quickly hunching one shoulder. "It happens, I guess."

"Her introduction was hard," Sarah added as she turned around to join the little cluster of people, voice laden with sympathy, as she jostled her baby. Bec figured, not insulted, that she'd been listening in.

"Sunstreaker is an ass," Maggie said bitterly. "I know that, and I've barely talked to him. He scared Bec badly enough that she was having asthma attacks," she continued, for Elizabeth's benefit. "And throwing up. –Don't worry!" she hastened to add. "He's the only one out of _all_ of the Autobots here that's anything like that. And you won't be going anywhere near him—I think he's been basically forbidden from interacting with any civilians."

A silence fell, slightly uncomfortable. Sarah turned away after a few seconds, to answer some message she'd received on the hand-held radio she had.

"Anyway," Maggie said, after a while. "_Which_ Autobots have you been getting to know?"

"Jazz and Bumblebee," Bec replied, voice going quiet again. "When they have time—I feel a little guilty about monopolizing them, or keeping them from their work at all—"

"Oh, don't be!" Sarah said, swinging back around. "Making sure everyone's happy—not panicking, at the _very_ least, is one of the more important things we do around here."

Bec shook her head firmly. "I thi—I _know_ I've come far, far below saving the world, when it comes to priority," she said. "That's alright. I just really appreciate the effort. They've both gone out of their way to be kind to me..."

Elizabeth looked remarkably relieved.

"Sounds like Bumblebee," Sarah said happily. "I don't know about Jazz, though—his sense of humor seems to be kind of, well, odd."

"It is, a bit," Bec said sheepishly. "But I think he tones it down for me."

"—Speaking of Jazz, looks like he's decided to show up. Finally—he was supposed to be here five minutes ago." Sarah turned back to her radio, pausing just briefly to point to the silver car that had arrived. It—he—transformed and turned almost immediately to speak with one of the soldiers.

Bec waved back at him, shyly, when he glanced over his shoulder at one point during his conversation and waved at her.

* * *

Bec chatted a little over the course of the evening. Mostly, though, she sat, and watched the crowd of people, talking when someone approached her but staying quiet for the most part. She was a little—overwhelmed. And everyone seemed very nice, but she just didn't want to speak to them. Not for any real reason—she felt sort of guilty for feeling like that at all—but just because she was too overwhelmed. She wanted nothing more than to be home, in her own house and her own garden and her own room. If she was there, she could retreat to the back patio, where there were chairs and her potted plants and she could get herself a glass of lemonade and read, or she could sit on her couch and watch rain falling on her garden with a cup of hot cocoa if it was a bad day, and just relax and be _herself_, not have to worry about expectations or appearances or what to say or how to ignore her growing headache or the ever-increasing pressure on her bladder (she couldn't bring herself to ask where the bathroom was, not now and not here) and maybe cry if she felt like it, or listen to embarrassingly bad teeny-pop music, or whatever she felt like. Home, where she had her books, for school or for gardening or bad romances just for guilty-pleasure reading, and her own kitchen and bedroom and bathroom, her yard and garden and a certain measure of privacy, where she didn't have to deal with the Autobots or the threat of Decepticons—she woke up gasping when the Decepticon who'd been at the Lookout jumped out of her from shadowy corners in her dreams, even when it was totally illogical, sometimes several times a night—even if sometimes the Autobots were nice to her, or at least trying to be, where there was no Sunstreaker at all and she could pretend she'd never met him in the first place, that he didn't _exist_ at all, because it would be so easy, the whole thing was so fantastical, to put it out of mind and remember it, only vaguely, as a plot from a bad sci-fi film.

Eventually, Judy found her. "Bec! There you are—I managed to get some more details on what's happening and what's going to happen. Apparently the Autobots intercepted a Decepticon message, and from what they've been able to figure out—it's coded—the Decepticons are moving in on us, and their current plan of attack is to go after the humans the Autobots have made friends with, because we're more vulnerable. So this is a twofold security measure—for one, it keeps us better protected, and for two it means that the Autobots don't have to divide their forces. Although there's some concern about them deciding to involve ordinary people as hostages...

"And then I found out where we're staying. ...Well, I requested that we get shown to our quarters. Fairly forcefully, actually, it's close to one in the morning by now and _they_—" she meant the Autobots, Bec assumed "—don't need sleep the way we do." She sounded guilty for a second, and Bec guessed she'd been overly short with someone or other. Or maybe several someones. She had the feeling that Judy could be like that, when she put her mind to it. Or didn't, as the case may be.

"Anyways, they don't have space for individual rooms yet, since the base is so new—it's still under construction. There will be more human-sized spaces in a year or two, but for now we'll be doubling up. So it could be worse—anyways, I think you'll be with one of the soldiers. Will wanted to put you in with Maggie, but I pointed out that she'd probably want to stay with her girlfriend. I think he was trying to _keep_ that from happening, actually—but Sarah elbowed him and he relented. Oh, I hope that turns out okay. Maggie's a good girl, excuse me, young woman, and I like Elizabeth too. Will's a good man, though, so I think it should be alright. Anyways, I'll see if I can find out who you'll be rooming with, but it should be Mikaela, if everything goes well. There's a chance you'll get your own room, depending, I'll do my best! And don't worry, it shouldn't be too much longer before we all have real beds, and then we can finally get some sleep."

"Thank you," Bec said, trying to smile at her. She was pretty sure she ended up just grimacing. She felt glassy-eyed with exhaustion and immaterial, unimportant worries she just couldn't let go of. "That sounds good."

"Great," Judy said, managing a real smile to return the attempt Bec had made, and she wandered off again, waving down the mech just entering the room as she did so. Bec made no moves to follow her; the new mech—red and blue, and _big_, so that had to be Optimus Prime; Judy had given her descriptions of each of the Autobots on earth, to help her—was intimidating, and she had no wish to get into a conversation with anyone, right now. Especially not with any of _them_.

* * *

It was after four before Bec finally stumbled into her newly assigned room. She slid off her shoes before climbing into bed, but nothing more. She didn't know where her bag was, anyway, even if she _had _wanted to change into her pajamas.

She stirred briefly when her roommate came in, but nothing more. She was beyond exhausted, so tired it felt like it had seeped into her bones, painful, and she didn't even fully wake.

Mikaela didn't try waking her. She understood: she was just as tired.

* * *

"So how come you're not rooming with Mikaela?" Miles asked. Sam "What, she didn't want you there?" he added, unable to resist the temptation.

"Will handed out the room assignments," he replied grumpily, turning over to face the wall on his side of the room. He knew Miles wouldn't actually get what that explained, but hey—he was kind of a genius, when he _thought_ about things. He'd figure out that Will was kind of old-fashioned, and didn't think teenagers—even if they were older teens—should sleep together. "Now shut up, I'm trying to sleep."

* * *

Trent looked at the soldier he was sharing a room with. There was a certain measure of trepidation in the expression.

William Hartt looked back. He did not look particularly impressed.

* * *

"Ratchet is a slaghead," Sideswipe announced, waltzing into the room he was sharing with Sunstreaker. His brother looked over, disinterested.

Sideswipe waited a long minute before continuing. "Of course, Sunstreaker, thank you for asking. Of _course_ I will tell you all about what happened." He waited another short moment, to see if Sunstreaker would react. He didn't, and Sideswipe continued. "He won't let me meet any of the humans. It would have been _interesting_. And hilarious! Even better than that one time, with the really _little_ mech—"

"So the medic's not as stupid as he looks, then."

"He-ey, Sunstreaker, that's mean…"

"Yes. Look, slagger, I _don't_ want to get stuck on punishment detail because you fuck around with the squishies. And you _will_ be in deep slag if you try it because they think we are _the same person_ and they think I'm out to kill the useless little fleshbags."

"—They probably think that because you _are,_ bro. Or pretty damn close to it. I mean, you almost pulled it off with one. At least one. On the other hand, though, I am _sooo_ impressed with you!"

"Shut up," Sunstreaker ground out. Sideswipe dragging out the sing-song, mocking voice he'd used for his last sentence was never a good sign.

"I mean, you're thinking ahead! And we're not even in a fight! It's about _not getting in trouble._ Every commander we've had would be checking their audio receivers for glitches right now, if they'd been here to hear that!"

"I want to get clean. And _keep_ it like that. This planet is disgusting. And punishment detail means I have no time for the washracks. _Don't keep me from getting clean._ And _staying_ that way."

"Geez, sheesh, whatever—you're ridiculous. You know, you're basically being punished right now—have you seen the map of the base? Yeah, I'd say you're not allowed in a good sixty percent of it."

"But I can get to the wash racks."

"...Yeah, whatever. Crazy. Oh well—I guess I'll find humans tomorrow. It shouldn't be too hard, this place is overrun with them."

"Sideswipe. Everyone here is ready to sign, stamp and slagging _seal _the authorization form for my offlining. They would be _happy_ too. _Everyone_." He paused, voice sounding ragged. "Optimus Prime, _Prime_, thinks I am—"

"I'm not sure I do. I'm sorry to intrude like this, but I wanted to talk to the two of you."

Sunstreaker tensed before pivoting suddenly, body language stiff and aggressive. "What the _slag_ are you doing here?"

"I am your commanding officer. I am here because I feel I need to be. Stand down, soldier. That is an _order._" Optimus Prime, standing in the doorway to their room, cut an impressive figure.

Sunstreaker subsided even before Sideswipe—who was hiding his nervousness, barely—prompted him by elbowing him in the side. "Yes, sir."

"Thank you. I'd like to request that the two of you meet me in the small meeting room, at eleven this morning. Is that acceptable?"

"Yes," said Sideswipe, grinning and managing to look only slightly on edge. "Sir," he added, belatedly.

"Thank you."

* * *

"Um," Sam said, because it had been awkwardly quiet and someone needed to say _something_. He just didn't know what.

He didn't know where to go with that lead-in, either, so he feel silent again. Nobody replied. It was just the four of them: Miles, Mikaela, Trent and himself. They were sitting in a glum and painful silence on some couches the Autobots or someone had set up on a much larger table in the empty rec. room, and they all kept on yawning, because of the late night they'd had, waiting for room assignments—and for things to be worked out at all, really. They'd all been up before ten in the morning, too. Judy had taken it upon herself to rouse them and, really, considering the circumstances, only Sam had whined about it.

Mikaela sighed and shifted. Sam, tired of babying Trent's too-delicate sensibilities, took the opportunity to sneak an arm around her waist. She relaxed into him, and he felt the familiar rush of warmth tug on the bottom of his stomach—the butterfly-feeling that kept on hitting him, a year later. He'd been so lucky—

Trent was twisted awkwardly, so he was staring in the opposite direction, away from the two of them. Miles' expression was somewhere and wistful and envious and—to Sam's annoyance—disbelieving.

His girlfriend was oblivious. Or _apparently_ oblivious, but Sam had learned not to underestimate her.

Mikaela sighed happily. "It seems like too long since I just let myself relax!"

"I'm too tired to relax," Miles grumbled, mock-annoyed and smothering another yawn. "I need to _sleep_."

"But why would you recharge when you could be doing something?" asked a far-too-amused-sounding voice over the intercom system. All four of them jumped, Trent most spectacularly. He looked spooked; Miles, on the other hand, had a slightly wicked grin spread helplessly across his face. "Something _interesting._" Sam didn't recognize the voice, a neutral baritone: that meant it was one of the newcomers. Sideswipe, he thought. Good, because then he wouldn't need to get snippy with him.

"Recharging isn't like sleeping," Mikaela said immediately. Sam smiled, proud and happy, and Miles looked interested. She drew in a deep breath before continuing, sounding just slightly nervous, unsure. "Recharge is an optional state which can be entered at will at any point, up to the moment when a mech's energy stores are completely exhausted, at which point he will temporarily offline until a certain point—determined by individual mechs by a variety of factors, including circumstances, base programming and personal programming modifications—before onlining again. Sleep, on the other hand, is a necessity on a regular basis for humans, and functioning is impacted even with a slight surfeit of rest. Sleep is essential to human functioning, and loss of sleep impairs judgment and thinking, coordination, reaction time and energy levels, increases stress, has a negative impact on the immune system and, in extreme cases, causes reactions up to and including severe hallucinations."

Trent was staring at Mikaela like he'd never seen her before. Like she was someone he'd never met, only more so: like he'd thought he'd known something about her, and been proved completely wrong on accident. Even though he'd dated her, he _knew_ her.

He didn't know this side of her, though.

Miles just looked extremely impressed. "That is _so cool!_" he announced, grinning and looking far too interested and excited for his own good. Or for the good of anyone else on the Autobot base, possibly the whole of North America, Sam decided privately. He'd had _experience_ with Miles' projects.

"_Damn_," the Autobot said, sounding impressed (if slightly mockingly so) and, still, amused. "Humans do that? That _is_ cool. Seriously? Hallucinations?"

Mikaela shrugged, face eloquent. _She_ didn't know.

"Yeah," Miles said, suddenly. "People start going _really_ crazy without sleep. Including full-on hallucinations. That's no sleep at all for days on end, though. Once a DJ for some radio station in New Jersey was doing some marathon thing where he was going to stay up for days on end, and he ended up getting paranoid and barricading himself inside the broadcasting room and apparently things got _really_ weird. And then the world record for days without sleep is eleven or something, but that was in a lab and the scientists kept on shocking him or something to keep him awake. I think legally that's considered torture."

"Why the hell do you _know_ this stuff, Gillon? Er, Miles," Trent demanded, sounding disbelieving and almost a little suspicious—like he thought he'd make up something like that to say.

"Good question," added Sideswipe, snickering a little.

"It just—sticks, sometimes," Miles said, off-hand. "And I remember it. I was on the knowledge bowl team for a while, but it was boring and I never knew anything helpful."

"You are _such_ a nerd."

"Hey! –Well, okay, maybe you're right, but you don't need to be _mean_ about it, Trent. So I'm a nerd. So what? You're a jock. ...A jock with better grades than me. Damn. I need to work on that..."

"I have better grades than you?"

"Yep. I'm not very reliable when it comes to turning in homework. I always get a perfect score on tests, but daily work? It just—never seems to happen, I guess, funny how that works—"

"_Funny how that works?_ Are you _stupid_, Miles? It's your own damn fault! What the fuck are you thinking? Just not going to bother with college? You think I _do_ want to do the homework? But I sure as hell always get it done—"

"Whoa, Trent, relax. I've got it all figured out. I go to hippie school, where I actually apply myself and pass. Voila, it works out!"

"I—you—"

"He has a point, Miles," Mikaela said, sounding a little surprised that she was _agreeing_ with Trent.

"I don't know," Sam said, feeling guilty. Miles _was_ his best friend, after all, or one of them—his best _human_ friend who wasn't also his girlfriend—and he did need someone to stick up for him. "Miles, you're smart enough that you'll probably be able to figure it all out even without a good college education. Going to change the world, right?"

"Damn straight!"

"You humans really _are_ weird."

Everyone ignored that little statement, except for Trent. "—Damn, that's creepy," he whispered, sounding distinctly unnerved. Sam felt guilty again, this time for not being more understanding of what Trent was going through. It had been hard for _him,_ and Trent wasn't him, really, it was messing him up more—and he should probably work on that, kind of like what his mom was doing for Bec, because it was _the right thing to do_, even if Trent had flicked spit balls at his head for years and tripped him in the hallways and—things like that. Just stupid stuff, but annoying, sometimes painful and always _annoying_ stupid stuff.

Trent continued speaking, back at a normal volume. Sam realized that he should probably find a discreet moment to pull Trent aside and tell him that the Autobots were able to hear thing much, much quieter than a whispered human voice. And Miles. He didn't think he'd told Miles that, either. "Whatever. It's just—damn, Miles! This shit's _important_. I fucked around when I was a freshie, but that's going to get you in trouble. Seriously. I was looking at flipping hamburgers until I died—"

"Thanks," Miles said suddenly, twisting around in his chair to look Trent square in the eye, looking deadly serious. "I mean it. I got things under control, but—thanks."

Sam opened his mouth to speak, but Mikaela elbowed him in the ribs, and he shut up. She shot him a look he took to mean that she'd talk to him later.

They lapsed into a slightly awkward silence again. This time, Sam let it go.

* * *

Optimus looked at the two mechs sitting in front of him, clearly considering them.

I understand you've had some difficulties with past commanders."

"Sort of," said Sideswipe, brightly.

"Certainly your records show you do. I'm going to talk with each of you, separately, about that later. That will be for specifics.

"If I am honest, I can't afford disobedience right now. This is a sensitive situation, both with the Decepticons and with Autobot relations with human governments. I need a strong, cohesive unit—one I can trust. Beyond that, I need to know that my rules will be followed. _We do not harm the humans_. Understood, Sunstreaker?"

There was a long silence.

"_Sunstreaker?_"

"Yes, sir."

"Thank you. ...Do you have an explanation for your behaviors? Or anything else to say? Especially as it relates to Rebecca."

Sideswipe looked like it was physically costing him to keep silent. He also looked mildly horrified.

"...Is that _girl_ here on base now?"

Sideswipe took the opportunity to cut in. "What girl? Are you talking about the one you almost killed—Bed? Er, permission to ask a question. Sir."

"For the last time, you _stupid_ waste of bolts, her name is not 'bed.' That's some weird human furniture or something. Her name is _Bec._"

Sideswipe snickered into one hand, losing his pretense to seriousness. Sunstreaker glared at him until Optimus shifted slightly, drawing their attention, and started to speak again.

"Yes, Rebecca is here. She chose to remain with us, to see things through: she offered to help."

Sideswipe snorted. "Ridiculous! Is she really that stupid, or did Sunny knock something loose?"

"I wouldn't be so fast to dismiss humanity. Samuel Witwicky did what I could not: he killed Megatron. I owe him my life."

"...That's so weird." The red Autobot shook his head.

"It does take a little...adjustment, but I have learned not to underestimate humans. You probably don't know that the best hacker on the base is human. The best two, actually.

"Back to the subject, though, I'm going to talk to Rebecca soon, and offer her the chance to leave, because of—recent developments." '_Because she's being forced into close proximity with __**you'**_ went unspoken. "You are both forbidden to approach her."

"I don't _want_ to go anywhere near the—her," Sunstreaker hissed, voice vehement. Sideswipe just shrugged. "—And her name is _Bec_. Not Rebecca. I don't even care, and it's like I'm the only one who can get it _right_—"

"'Bec' is a nickname. Something used to denote informality and friendship. It would be inappropriate for me to take that liberty." Optimus Prime was cool, formal, and it was a clear reminder: If _I_ am not close enough to use that familiarity, _you_ certainly aren't.

"Fine. _Fine_. Humans have stupid naming conventions. Whatever."

"Anything else?"

"...No."

Sideswipe elbowed his brother, again.

"No, _sir._"

"Good. Alright, then. Thank you for speaking with me, Sunstreaker, Sideswipe." Optimus Prime nodded once, cordially, and stood, his meaning clear: they stood as well, turned and left. The automated door hissed shut behind them, leaving them in the dark corridor. It didn't matter: they didn't have human eyes.

There was a moment of stifling hostility as the two started walking back towards their quarters.

"What the _slag_ was that?" Sideswipe said finally. "And what in the Pit is up with you and the human's name? I'd think you _cared_ if I didn't know better. And I do know better, because you almost _killed her._ And then you pull that with Optimus frigging _Prime_, glorious leader of the _entire Autobot Army_, and you're all _'I don't _want_ to go anywhere near her'_ and _'Is that _girl_ here?'_ and do you want to get us _both_ killed? Are you seriously glitching that badly? Because you have already done a lot to make us irredeemable social pariahs and we are _damned_ lucky that they are so short on troops that they can't afford to put us in stasis or pit, just offline us, or whatever, banish us—because they _could_. _That_ was what Optimus Prime was telling us with that 'I can't afford it' stuff. He is saying that good relations with human governments is more important than the two of us, and that we are not going to come out ahead if it turns into that."

"I _know_. I am not _stupid_, Sideswipe!"

"Then act like it! _Primus_, Sunny."

"Just—shut up."

"_No,_" Sideswipe said, grumpy, but he did fall silent.

"—It's weird how the Prime didn't call us to his office. Huh."

"His office is probably in some area we're forbidden to enter," Sunstreaker pointed out, cynical.

"Yeah. You're probably right."

Neither of the two spoke for a long, long time, finishing the journey and entering their room in silence. It was very quiet in the room.

"Sunstreaker?"

No response.

"Why _do_ you always remember that girl's name? Bec's?"

"I don't know. I just—do." He hesitated, looking troubled, before his face cleared again, contorting into his familiar scowl. "Why don't _you?_"

* * *

"—So this is the kitchen. Of course, _all_ of this is inside of the general hang-out area, I guess that's what you'd call it, for the Autobots, so make of that what you will. Anyways, there's always food in the fridge, and there's usually ice cream, I can't decide if I love or hate _that_—"

"Maggie," Elizabeth said, voice quiet but very serious. It carried a lot of weight. The Australian woman quieted and turned, expression set and faintly wary.

"Yes? Lissie?"

"How could you have not told me about this? You're comfortable. You've been here before. How many of those '_business trips'._..?"

"—They were business. But they were usually here. I'm _sorry,_ you know. I couldn't— I can't—it was the government, sweet. I wanted to—I wanted to! The Autobots—they're great, they're a part of my life now, and I didn't want to keep that secret, but I _had_ to..."

"Maggie. _Maggie_. You were lying to me. And you just didn't tell me. I don't care about the damn government, and I thought that I knew that you felt the same, but you _promised_ me you would tell me the truth. Remember? You could have even said that you couldn't tell me...! That's all it would have taken, I wouldn't have asked..."

"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry!"

"I know," Elizabeth said, softly. "I _know_ you're sorry. It's the only reason I'm here. But it...it..."

Maggie paused, suddenly. "Elizabeth—Lissie? Could we talk somewhere else?"

"What? _Why?_"

"Because—Because we're being monitored." Maggie almost cringed at the confession, knowing what her girlfriend's reaction would be even before it happened. She was right: the woman went pale, a hand flying to her face. "It's not like what you're thinking! It's just a security measure in the public spaces—I just don't want to have this conversation where somebody's listening in—"

"I don't care about your stupid human issues," announced a voice over the intercom system. Elizabeth went even paler and trembled a little. Maggie didn't react to the voice, but reached forward as the other woman rocked back on her heels, shaky.

"Shut up, Ironhide," she growled through gritted teeth as she pulled Elizabeth into a full hug, one that was returned, almost desperately, tightly enough that it almost hurt a little.

"I _don't care,_ woman. Stop it!"

"Christ, Ironhide! Where _do_ you get the damn misogyny from? _Where?_ You're asexual, in that you're not gendered! None of you are! _It doesn't make sense!_"

There was no reply. The silence ticked on for three full long, slow minutes.

"Good," Maggie announced at last. "He's ignoring me. –Us, I guess."

Elizabeth drew in a long, shaky breath. "I don't think I'm ever going to get used to this," she said, voice weak. "But...but let's go talk."

"I love you," Maggie whispered, softly. It felt like a weight had been lifted off of her, almost like she could fly.

* * *

The boy next to her on the couch was sitting so stiffly, so palpably uncomfortable, that Judy wanted to elbow him in the ribs, on top of reminding him that she didn't bite.

Trent would probably have a heart failure if she did, though. Really. She had _no idea_ why he was so nervous right now. After all, she'd had him as a guest in her home! He hadn't seemed to nervous then—although he'd seemed considerably more dazed, _stunned_, really, so maybe that had something to do with it. Now that the panic had started to wear off (and she was certainly pleased to see that) the more mundane problems—such as nervousness around the mother of the boy he used to bully—could set in.

And she _did_ know that a lot of the bruises that Sam had turned up with, almost all conveniently explained away with some excuse about PE class, or whatever, had been the handiwork of Trent or one of his friends. Nothing had actually been said to her, or around her, but _really,_ she wasn't stupid. Judy was more than capable of figuring out something like that. Especially with the boy living in her own house!

It had given her a special glow of pride, that Sam had been so accepting of him. True, there were little tiffs and ungracious moments, but he'd handled himself remarkably well for a teenage boy facing a barely-ex bully. On top of him being an ex-boyfriend of his girlfriend! Really, it was more than she'd expected, more than she'd even let herself hope for. She allowed herself part of the credit, for raising Sam right, her little Sam-boy, but she knew that most of the credit was rightly due to the Autobots. He'd grown up.

And Trent was learning to grow up. Slowly—well, no; very quickly, actually. He just had a lot longer to go than Sam had had, or Miles, and she put a lot of the blame for that on his parents, even though she'd never met them—but quickly or slowly, and definitely nervously, he was growing up.

Judy could help a little with the nervous part, at least.

She put down the scarf she was working on (she'd decided to take up knitting when Sam had started his senior year, figuring she'd need _something_ more to do when he'd left the house, and it was going very slowly: she was still on her first, very basic pattern, and she never really seemed to find the time to work on it) with a decisive movement, turning to face Trent, catching him by the eyes.

"So, Trent. We haven't really had the chance to talk."

He swallowed, hard, and seemed almost to lean back. He wanted to escape: that meant he felt trapped. Yes, Judy's best guess was that he was afraid of her judging him for what he'd done to Sam and Miles. She'd need to allay that fear, while making it clear what she thought of his past actions. A fairly tricky but far from impossible task. And he seemed like a sensible boy, one who'd have a good head on his shoulders in a few years. That helped.

"Y-yes, ma'am?"

"Oh, _please_. You're worse than Optimus! It's Judy. And—oh, relax. I just want to chat, get to know you! It's always nice to meet more of Sam's friends." She didn't pause there, didn't even give him the chance to correct her. Or to think about the need to correct her. "What are you planning on doing after graduation?"

He swallowed, open his mouth to speak, closed it, swallowed again before actually starting. Judy felt sorry, suddenly—she hadn't meant to give him a _hard_ question. She'd thought that he'd have it figured out by now. It wasn't going to be too long until it was June and he was a graduate—

"I was...I was thinking about the army. But—I don't know. It's. Um."

"The army? Well, this is a great opportunity for you! Surrounded by all these military people. Have you asked any of them questions yet? Are you thinking the Army specifically, or something like the Navy instead? Are you going to try to get into West Point or some place similar, maybe?"

"I...I don't know," Trent said, looking still more uncomfortable. "I hadn't..." He trailed off, looking lost and a little afraid. When he continued, his voice was faint. "I hadn't really thought about..._dying. _I guess I hadn't..."

Judy's heart went out to him. It took every ounce of strength she had not to wrap him up into a motherly hug.

She didn't try to keep herself from laying a sympathetic hand on his shoulder, though. "I understand," she said, voice just as soft. "I hope it all works out for you. I'd still recommend you talk to one of the officers. Maybe Sergeant Epps, or Captain Lennox. Maybe ask that William Hartt since you're sharing a room. I know the first two would both be happy to talk to you, and I'd assume the same about William, although I don't know him well."

He didn't look convinced.

"Alright, then. I hope you figure it out, though. I—I know this might sound strange, since we hardly know each other and I'm hardly an expert in much of anything, really, but if you've got any questions for me, I'm more than happy to answer them."

"Thank you," he said, looking away kind of desperately.

"Good," Judy replied, smiling warmly at him and waiting until he met her gaze. "Now, then. Do you have a girlfriend?"

"No," he said, a little rebellious-sounding now, looking away. Judy backpedaled, realizing that she'd hit a nerve.

"I hope you find the right person for you, then. It can take a while—oh, the absolute losers I used to date! That was long before Ron, of course." She smiled again, happy. "It worked out in the end. It almost always does, you know! And I'm sure there's any number of young ladies who would date someone like you."

He was blushing, heavily. Judy hid another inner smile.

"There's time for that later, right? Oh, I remember now! I was going to ask one of the Autobots to show you around the base—would you be fine with that? I know I was a little overwhelmed my first days here—" Well, honestly, a little more than overwhelmed... "—so I'd like to see if there's something that can help it, right now. Would you be up for a tour with one of the Autobots? Jazz, maybe—or no, Bumblebee might be better—oh, I'll ask around."

"Thank you," Trent said, looking a little dazed, and Judy reminded herself to stop running over the kid quite _so_ much. Even if it made things easier. That tactic would only work for so long, and for so much...

"I'm babbling though, aren't I? I have trouble with that! Are there any questions you'd like to ask me? Anything you'd like to talk about?"

"Thank you for letting me stay at your house..."

"Oh, of course, Trent! I'm always happy to have Sam's friends over, and it was so much more than that—I can't imagine what it was like for you. Is like for you, I imagine. I'm just sorry I couldn't do more."

"...Ma'am—Mrs. Witwicky—I don't really think Sam is my friend. I...I... Used to—"

Judy leaned over and patted his hand, looking at him kindly. "I know, dear. But I think you might be wrong about what he thinks of you. Sam's a good kid, and you are too. And you've been through a lot."

"But..."

"Can't people change?"

Trent couldn't seem to come up with anything to say to that.

* * *

Bec looked over at Judy and then down at the table, drawing in a deep breath. She let it out with a sigh and then turned, determined, back to the older woman.

"Alright," she said, an unexpected note of strength in her voice. Reaching over, she drew a piece of paper closer to the two of them. "This is an overview of your current gardens. Here are the side views—"

Her voice was confident, professional, excited. Not at all what Judy had come to expect from the girl. It was a nice change. Still, she couldn't help herself— "Did you draw these yourself?"

And there was the Bec she'd gotten to know again. "Yes," she said, blushing and looking down.

"They're good!"

"No, no, not at all! I just had a lot of lessons as a child. My mother was an artist before she went into fashion design. It's—it's just the ability to give the sense of something, right? It's not _art._ Look, the perspectives off, and my sizing—it's just scribbling!"

Judy wasn't sure she agreed, entirely, but Bec had a point and she let it go. "Alright, then. Continue, please?"

"Alright," Bec said, again. "Okay— So, looking at the overview, your beds and patches are all very disjointed. You keep on adding one, every few years, right? It wasn't planned out all at once. So you're lacking flow...see, if you connected this bit here, put a path through here—nothing much, just sawdust, or stepping stones and a hardy groundcover—there's a greater continuity for the garden as a whole. On a more practical level, it means that people are more likely to explore the more hidden areas—it invites you in. If you feel ambitious—when you retire, maybe, or when Sam leaves home—you could add in something here, here and maybe here—that's a lot more garden to take care of, but it would _vastly_ increase the illusion of space, of distance, in the yard. See? It separates it all off into separate areas with very little visibility in-between if you plant it right, so the usable individual spaces increase…"

"Wow," Judy said, squinting at the piece of paper and the rough pencil strokes—in varying colors, for each set of suggestions—Bec had filled in on it. "Yes—I think you're right! That's genius. I never would have thought of it like that—thank you!"

Bec blushed again. "You're—You're welcome," she said, sounding pleased, and almost as if she was unused to praise. "Now," she continued, after a brief pause, voice oddly almost-businesslike again. "Your garden uses mostly plants commonly found in what I'll call the 'average' garden. Things with history—daisies, a lot of annuals like petunias, marigolds, modern hybrid roses, a few hydrangeas… All very nice plants. Where did you grow up? Somewhere on the East Coast?"

Judy smiled, a little sheepishly. "You're right. How did you guess?"

Bec hesitated for just a brief second, wavering. "The plants you're growing—they're all very nice, but they're not well-suited for growing conditions in Nevada, especially not in a sustainable, low-effort and natural method. I know that I can't grow good roses up where I am, in Oregon. And they'll never be their best, even with all the babying they probably need to survive..."

"I don't really want one of those, those..." Judy trailed off, apparently searching for appropriately diplomatic wording. "I don't want some garden filled with shrubby and unattractive plants, even if it means that they don't need much watering or weeding. –I mean, some of the things I've seen in _gardens_ are weeds themselves!"

"Oh, no, that's not what I'm talking about!" Bec said immediately, laying a hand beseechingly on Judy's forearm. "No, I'm just talking about mixing in a few more non-traditional plants in with everything else. And some that are a little more unusual, but still a good history of use in gardens, like red hot pokers—_Kniphofia_ species. Here." She reached over and pulled up a laptop, flipping it open and then pulling up a webpage. "Like this."

"Oh—that's pretty," Judy said, sounding slightly surprised.

"It's a succulent, or close to it, I think, so it won't need much supplemental water. And it's got a nice vertical, very structural shape to the leaves—so even when it's not blooming it won't be dead space. And then… California poppies. You probably know the plain orange, but if you don't like that color there's salmons, yellows and reds available, now, and they'll self-seed, so you won't have to replant each year, and they'll be fine off doing their own thing. And California lilacs, they might work, their Latin name is _Ceanothus_...have you ever thought about ornamental grasses?" (1)

* * *

(1) I'm taking liberties when it comes to the hardiness of these plants in Nevada, seeing as none of them would survive long in true Nevadan conditions. (Zones 1 and 2 using the system in the Sunset Western Garden Book.) Since canon is very _very_ iffy when it comes to where the movie was actually located—the plants they showed weren't going to be growing in those zones either, and then Californian license plates—I'm going to go with it. If this bothers you, play pretend. You can use Russian olives, crababbles and _Clematis armandii_ instead.)

* * *

Sunstreaker sat silently, but he felt like cursing. Loudly. At length. But that would just catch the attention of the grumpy Autobot he was sitting with for monitor duty—Bumblebee seemed to hate him even more than most of the other Autobots did. And then he'd probably get shot, because he would be cursing at Bec and they would almost definitely take that as a threat to her.

He'd never—_never_—heard her sound like that. It was like she was somebody else! Was she _crazy_ or something? Because he'd watched her for weeks. And then driven her to the rest of the Autobots.

And he'd never heard her sound so confident. Or happy.

* * *

It was, Elizabeth decided, kind of like having an audience—a _rapt_ audience—as she ate.

The table—actually several mismatched tables, pulled together in a best-fit answer and covered with a tablecloth—was full of humans, all eating and chattering. Elizabeth herself had been having a conversation with the man next to her, one of the soldiers (she _should_ know his name, but remembering names had never been a real skill of hers...) but now he'd turned to talk about some sort of_ orientation_ or _training_ the government-types were going to be running for new recruits with some other men further up the table, and the woman next to her—Judy; she remembered _her_ because of what she'd been told, on top of witnessing the woman in action, which was quite impressive—was talking with the shy girl—Bec?—and was deeply involved in the conversation, which seemed to be about plants. It also seemed to be totally, unnecessarily complicated, and involve far too many words that weren't in real English.

So she'd fallen silent, not really all that upset about the lack of a conversational partner. It was nice to just lean back, eat her food and—_not interact,_ she guessed. Catch her breath. Assess the situation. Something like that.

She'd been doing that. But the way there were Autobots clustered around the table they were at—a _lot_ of them; comparatively, she meant—had derailed her. It was kind of—creepy, honestly.

Well, it would be normal, if—

That was the key word. _If._ If they were—well, human. Even if they were able to eat with them. _That_ would make it okay. It would just be normal, then, a chance to talk (which they were doing, but that wasn't the _point_ of a dinner table) but the way things were? It was creepy. Because they were _watching them eat_. Which just rubbed her wrong. Instinctively, she supposed. Or maybe it was because of her mother's table rules, which included feeding anyone who stopped by and never, _ever,_ under any circumstances eating in front of someone else.

That was kind of it. She wanted to feed them. But she _couldn't_. Because—of course!—they weren't human. Or even something vaguely humanish. If they just had something remotely analogous to eating! But they didn't (well, Maggie had been telling her something about energy intake, which was necessary, of course, but that didn't translate, not with the form it took and then cultural implications on top of that and really overall it just wouldn't help, it'd just make everything worse) so—

They didn't eat, in short, so she'd need to learn to deal with a whole group of giant robots—mechs—observing her.

While she ate.

God _damn_. It went across every bone in her body! And that it bothered her so much just irritated her even _more._

* * *

"I think I'm short a card again," Miles said, looking at his hand with a good measure of confusion.

"Oh, _please,"_ Fig muttered, eyes cast heavenwards, as if he was communing with God. "Look, chaval, this is the fifth time. _How_ do you keep on ending up short? You always take a putamadre card. _Always_. Everyone does."

Mikaela snorted into her own hand. Sam cast her a sideways look.

"Yeah, but I've only got eleven—"

"¡Madre! Me cague en la leche—"

"What?" Miles looked even more confused.

Trent cut in. "Do the, uh, steps have to be the same suite?"

"Yes, yes, how many times do I have to tell you that? Miles, you're only supposed to have ten cards—"

"How do you end the hand, again?" Mikaela asked.

"Cieres—"

"Fine. Cieres."

"Aww, dang!" Sam said, throwing his hand down. "I was so close—"

"No, no, Mikaela, chica_,_ it's _'_ciero_'_ if you're the one speaking because of the conjugation—"

"How does this work again? I'm not sure if I have a set—"

"Wait, can I combine my two twos with Miles' two to make a set?"

"_¡Joder!"_

"This is why we just stick to poker," Epps said, looking up from the Sudoku puzzle he'd been working on. "Not any damned weird games, like this shit. Hey, Fig, I think someone walked off with your scorecard again."

_"¡Ay!"_ The man stomped off, muttering viciously in Spanish.

"...Anyone want to play Go Fish? Or Spoons?"

"Fuck off, Witwicky."

"I'd _love_ to play, Sam," Mikaela said pointedly.

"Me too," Miles added, although he didn't place an arm around Sam the way the his girlfriend had.

Trent paused. "Alright. _Sorry_. Who's dealing?"

* * *

Bec was feeling slightly panicky. Again.

She was pretty sure she was lost. And she had been walking briskly for the past two hours. In a straight line, she'd _thought_, but nothing looked familiar. Or rather, everything had the same kind of generic similarity that meant that everything wasn't quite exactly the same, but close enough to it that Bec wouldn't be able to tell _if_ she passed by something she'd seen before.

She was really tired. It was so late: she'd woken out of an uneasy sleep and decided that she'd rather walk around the base, as stagnant and sterile as it was, than try to sleep, tangled up in suffocating blankets and sticky with sweat from dreams—nightmares—she didn't remember.

Bec regretted that decision.

Would they find her corpse? How long would it take? What sort of condition would it be in? _No, no—_ The woman shook her head forcefully, to push the thoughts out of her mind. She was being so macabre—that wasn't like her.

Where _was_ she?

A sudden noise made her snap around, but there was no one there.

* * *

Sunstreaker ducked back around the corner very quickly, mind racing.

_She_ wasn't supposed to be here. Worthless scrap of a carbon-thing. What in the Pit was she doing? If mechs scared her that slagging much than why was she _looking_ for them—?

Maybe it was the light, but she looked as pale—as unhealthy—as she had when she'd just "thrown up." Or any number of other euphemisms—what possible use did humanity—_English_—have for so many words for such a spectacularly nasty and relatively uncommon biological function?

He couldn't just let her die.

Because he'd never see the light of day again. That was it.

And she'd offline anyways if she saw him. With that ridiculous respiratory system business. And she didn't have a bag or anything with her, so she probably didn't even have her medication with her. He should call someone, get the whole mess taken off his hands. But—

Not Sideswipe. The officers—Optimus Prime, Jazz—would just throw him in the brig on general principle and probable cause. Bumblebee would help the girl, but probably shoot Sunstreaker himself. Ironhide—hah! He wasn't likely to even bother with the girl. He'd definitely go after Sunstreaker, and in the aftermath of _that_ little confrontation he'd end up the one blamed for it all.

Slag. It had to be the medic. But maybe that would mean he'd know how to help her.

He meant, her continued health meant he was less likely to get in trouble. He really didn't want to deal with that.

* * *

Bec had finally given up and sat down; there was no corner to curl up into, so she'd done her best, with her back to the cold metal wall—it seemed to stretch on up to forever, like a skyscraper, only even blanker, from down here, because there were no windows—and her knees drawn up to her chest, her arms wrapped around them.

The lights were too bright for her to fall asleep, but she'd reached a dazed, almost hypnotized state, staring ahead at nothing and mind blank, everything muted with exhaustion and the sort of numbness (like everything had been wrapped in cotton) that would turn into headache. She was cold, too, and she kept on shivering, intermittently.

She started as she suddenly heard clanging footsteps. Sound carried oddly, in the metal walls of the Autobot base. It didn't seem to echo the way it should. Maybe she was just too tired and hallucinating, or maybe it was some sort of weird alien metal. Regardless, the approaching mech sounded as if he'd come out of thin air, almost on top of her. She looked fearfully up and down the long featureless hallway, but couldn't see anything. It seemed to take far too long for the source of the steps to come into view.

Bec relaxed, minutely, at the appearance of—Ratchet, she though. The medic. She thought, distantly, that she should thank Judy again, for taking the time to teach her a little about each of the mechs at the base.

She didn't know much about him, other than that. She'd never interacted with him, except for that one night, at the Lookout, when she hadn't realized who she'd been talking to—

The blush, as much a product of fear as it was embarrassment, was so heavy that it almost hurt. It did make her feel a little warmer, though, the surge of blood dispelling a little of the cold.

"I'm sorry," she said, indistinctly.

"You haven't done anything worth apologizing for," he replied, coming a little closer, and something made Bec feel like he was purposefully modulating his tone, trying to sound nicer, less threatening. She wasn't sure, though. It was hard to think. "Oh, slag—ah, you're running a slight fever."

"Oh," Bec said. "—That would explain it."

"Explain what?"

"I don't feel very good…"

"Yes, I would imagine so. Can I take you to the med bay? I can give you some acetaminophen to help bring it down. And it's probably just a cold, but I want to make sure it's not something more worrisome."

Bec realized that he hadn't brought up the fact that she'd been lost somewhere she probably wasn't supposed to be, and felt a rush of silent gratitude.

"Yes," she said, and the words still came out panicky, more so than she meant them to be. She shouldn't be so afraid!

Bec also couldn't hide her flinch when the mech suddenly collapsed inwards, transforming.

"Here," he said. Irrationally, Bec thought that his voice should sound muffled when he was like that, all crunched in on himself. She wondered how comfortable it was. "I figured this would be more comfortable for you. Climb in."

It took her two tries before she made it to her feet, mostly because of fear. She didn't _want_ to go towards Ratchet. Towards the _robot_. And she felt wobbly and weak—_now_ she could tell she was feverish.

She did it anyways.

* * *

"I'm sorry," Bec said, again, interrupting the dead silence of their trip through the featureless hallways.

"Don't be."

"I—I should have been more respectful. I shouldn't have snapped at you. Back at the Lookout. When I was hurt."

"Bec—"

"I wasn't—wasn't quite myself, and I shouldn't have—I promise it won't happen again—"

"Bec!"

She fell silent immediately, pulling inwards on herself, like she expected to be slapped. Ratchet felt the growing urge to shoot something, but he kept it to himself.

"Considering my patients—and even if you don't—you were absolutely not out of bounds. I was not and am not insulted or in any way upset. Especially when you take into account the fact that there were definite extenuating circumstances at the time."

"But—"

"_Really_, Bec.

I'm still sorry." She said it softly, quiet enough that Ratchet figured the average human wouldn't have caught it.

He wasn't human, though. And she'd still said it.

On one hand, her need to heap guilt onto herself was destructive and incredibly frustrating. And it wasn't going to help her get over her fear. And on the other hand, she was _disagreeing_ with him. Standing up for herself. They were making progress.

Even if it amounted to one step forward and two steps back.

"I forgive you, then," he said when they reached the med bay, with an approximation of a sigh. She looked at him with wide eyes, but he had the feeling that she'd understood.

* * *

Sam looked up as someone walked up to him, slowing and then pausing as he drew closer.

It was Trent, shifting slowly on his feet, and looking half belligerent, half—_something._

"Look. I'm sorry. I'm _really fucking sorry._ I never should have pulled any of that shit, and, just—_fuck._ I'm _sorry._"

Dead silence reigned. Trent didn't wait to hear it finish, marching determinedly back towards the door he'd walked in through, moving so quickly he was almost running.

Miles and Sam stared after him with clear confusion.

Miles summed it up. "Dude. What the hell was that?"

* * *

"Rebecca Kurtz?" someone said, from behind her. She whirled around, perhaps slightly faster than was mannerly. Or much faster than was mannerly.

"Yes?" she quavered, nervous. It was the leader—Optimus Prime. He was imposing, even more so than the other robots—he just was...was...

Was utterly, entirely and unmistakably the mech he was. Leader of the Autobots. He was just... Yes. Just _imposing_. Not in a _bad_ way, really, but...

"I'm Optimus Prime. I'd like to talk to you, if you're willing."

"Ah...um. Yes?"

"It's your decision, Rebecca," he said, softening somewhat. Even though he was clearly _trying_ to put her at ease, it was still working. There was just something about that voice that made you want to trust him.

"Yes," she said, a little more firmly this time. "Thank you."

"I'm the one who should be thanking you," he said, gravely. "I'm sorry you've been involved in this situation."

"I'm...I'm not," Bec said, almost whispering. "I..."

He waited for her to continue, but started speaking when it was clear she wasn't going to. "I'm glad," he said. "I am happy to see you adjusting. Judy tells me you're feeling more comfortable with Autobots."

"Yes," she said, suddenly lifting her head to meet his gaze. "I am. Jazz and Bumblebee—have been wonderful. And I'm...adjusting. It was mostly—mostly shock. At the beginning. I didn't—react well...

"But I'm trying. Because you're people, right? Just like anyone else. Not _just like,_ I suppose, but—close enough!"

Was he _smiling_ at her? It looked like it—

"Thank you," he said, and he sounded like he _meant_ it. "I am glad to hear that. It can be lonely, here on Earth. I'm glad you're coming to see us as individuals."

There wasn't much she could say to that. She managed a weak smile, but a fairly nervous one—maybe he should have waited to give her his thanks.

She was partly nervous because of who he was, though. Not just _what_ he was.

...Not that that wasn't intimidating, too.

* * *

"Why are you staring at me?" The human—the Miles one, he thought—looked a little nervous and sounded defensive.

Sideswipe was quick to supply a reason. "Because you look weird."

"You look _weirder._"

"I do not!"

* * *

"—So that's when my commander decided he'd had enough of me, and told me that if I put one toe out of line he'd drum my ass out of the Autobot army. Actually, I kind of think he thought I was a traitor, because I _might_ have been acting like I was staking out the base for weaknesses and comming Megatron in my free time. But I don't think he'd really read our files because he didn't really know that me and Sunny were brothers, so he didn't end up doing anything after our unit leader spoke to him about how losing me meant he'd lose Sunshine as well, and that one or both of us was likely to do something dramatic when we left, and mine might be the only non-lethal reaction. So the next time he found me trying to sneak into intelligence headquarters—"

"Sideswipe, that's quite enough. I don't need to hear anything more about your discipline history."

"Yes, sir, Optimus Prime!"

"Oh—and I think it's safe to say that you can consider yourself on probation." Ratchet's tone was somewhat smugly amused.

"What? _Why?_"

Ironhide growled. "Because you're a menace and an idiot. _Any arguments?_"

"...Yessir, I'm on probation. No arguments."

* * *

"Are you avoiding me?" Sideswipe said, his tone suspiciously bright.

Sarah Lennox didn't say anything, continuing to fold the laundry in front of her, movements quick, brisk, businesslike and unamused.

"...Are you _ignoring_ me? Can't have that, can we—come on, squishy, talk to me!"

Sarah turned away from the laundry with a faint sigh, fishing her cellphone out of her pocket. Sideswipe watched, bemused, as she dialed, still not even recognizing him enough to look at him.

"Hello? Ironhide, it's me, Sarah—could you do something for me? Yeah—it's the new mech."

"Oh, _slag,_" Sideswipe said as he realized what she was doing, bursting into laughter as he lunged for the door.

Sarah ignored that, too.

* * *

Depending on who you asked, if you asked about how good Jazz was at monitor duty, you would either get a raging tirade about his utter inability to deal with boredom and pay attention, or a grudgingly reluctant acknowledgment that he was startlingly effective. Sometimes it was the same person, sometimes at the same time—his old security director, a raving paranoid, had developed a weird working relationship with him. He ranted, railed, and did everything short of actively frothing at the mouth when it came to Jazz's approach to monitor duty, but he also trusted him implicitly, or at least as much as he ever did.

People tended to forget that Jazz had been built for spying, and duo-outfitted for interrogations—which was actually something he encouraged. Being underestimated was a huge advantage.

...And, true, he was somewhat easily distracted, when he wasn't on the field.

That didn't mean he wasn't paying attention.

So Jazz was bored, and maybe poking around that human network—the Internet—but he still caught the slightest flicker of motion in the bottom right corner of the one of the cameras. It was pointed at an empty hallway, where there should have been _no one:_ it was where they stored emergency energy supplies, both for humans and Autobots.

Jazz hadn't gotten to where he was by accident. And he hadn't done it by inaction.

_Suspicious movement located in corridor 114,_ he sent out on his comm. system, rising quickly and pausing just long enough to start up emergency defenses before sprinting for the door. _Who's closest?_

* * *

The sound of an explosion set Mikaela catapulting out of bed, not even bothering to grab her bathrobe before running for the hallway outside her door.

"What's going on?" she called, to the only Autobot she could see, a very dim shape on the other side of the darkened, vast room the relatively tiny human quarters were located in.

"Jazz caught an intruder on base," came the perfunctory response. "I think they've got him now." He tilted his head to the side, a gesture Mikaela recognized; she waited. After a second, there was an affirmative grunt.

"Do they know how it got in here?"

"An MP3 player."

"Ah. Alright then. Thank you. —Uh, why are you here?"

The mech took a few steps closer. "Because I'm supposed to be _guarding_ you until the base's declared safe. Why, human?"

Mikaela finally recognized the mech as he drew nearer. It was Sunstreaker. That was...deeply surprising.

She didn't say anything, though, just turning away with a tired sigh. "My name's Mikaela, not '_human._' Thank you, though."

And then she went back to bed. It was three in the morning, and she was tired.

* * *

"Why am I here?" hissed Sunstreaker at Ratchet, glaring suspiciously.

"Because I need to check you over. Sit down."

The yellow mech crossed his arms and glared.

Ratchet glared right back.

Sunstreaker sat down.

...But only because he _wanted to._ Because he needed to play nice for a while, because he wasn't officially on probation, but in reality? All it would take for him to end up in the brig awaiting reprogramming was a twitch in the wrong direction at the wrong time.

"Good. _Thank_ you. Recent injuries?"

"Yes."

"Send me the files."

"Sure."

"That's 'sure, _sir_,' soldier," Ratchet grumbled, but he didn't seem to mean it too seriously. Sunstreaker thought so, at least. But it was hard to tell. He couldn't even see the medic's face, the way he was bent over him, looking at the thin ridges of old weld marks that ran down one of his legs.

"Any history of health problems associated with processor damage?"

"No."

"History of health problems associated with energon contaminants, pump failure or other circulatory system issues?"

"Had my pump replaced at a battle a while ago. It was shattered."

"Send me any files you have about it. Programming glitches?"

"Depends on who you ask." Sunstreaker's glare intensified with the words, although the medic, _slag_ him, wasn't looking at his face, he was still fidgeting with his leg, and so he just stared at the mech's back.

"Ah. That'll be your interpersonal problems?"

Sunstreaker grunted in a way that could possibly be seen as affirmative.

"We'll get back to that. Any _other_ programming glitches?"

"No."

"Rust-prone areas?"

"Don't know."

"Old wounds that might have healed wrong, or excessive scar-material build-up?"

"Left wrist..."

* * *

"Is that it?" Sunstreaker growled as the medic set down his welder at last, finally looking away from his arm.

"More or less. Come here—there's something I want to talk about. We're doing it in my office."

"Yes, _sir._" Sunstreaker didn't think that Ratchet was stupid enough to miss the sarcasm, but he didn't react to it if he did. Weird. He sure as slag didn't _like_ Sunstreaker, so why was he letting him get away with disrespect?

He didn't let Sunstreaker go in second, either, instead punching in the code and waiting, slightly annoyed, by the touch pad and watching him—watching suspiciously? It was hard to tell, the mech was _weird—_walk in before he followed, the door hissing shut behind them.

Sunstreaker waited to sit down until Ratchet had chosen his seat. He wasn't sure why he bothered with the respectful gesture, but it seemed...like a good idea.

"Send me anything you've got when it comes to your little personality issues," Ratchet said, after he'd taken his seat and Sunstreaker, considerably more reluctantly, had followed suit, still glaring slightly at the medic. "But I'm forming my _own_ opinion about this. You should know that. I haven't let myself rely on the possibly flawed reactions of anyone else for any of these sorts of things, and I'm not going to do that for _you_. And you probably know this, but I'm going to tell you anyway, because it needs saying, too: I'm probably going to end up reporting whatever I come up with to Optimus, and anyone else who ends up needing to hear it. Probably Ironhide, if you get put under his command. Pity the mech who has him as an officer, but you seem more the big-guns type than a spy.

"That's beside the point, though. Am I correct in understanding that things are easier for you when you're around your brother?"

"...Yes."

"Good. That's a good sign. It doesn't say much for your sanity or normality, but it says that you're quite possibly fairly stable. Not that I see Sideswipe as _stable,_ the mech's clearly a menace. And there's no actual evidence that you've got a programming glitch, not something personal?"

"I...don't know."

"Nobody's found anything to try to reprogram, to try and fix your tendency to kill people you're not supposed to?"

"_I don't let them get that far,"_ Sunstreaker hissed, suddenly leaning towards the mech, fury in his eyes and threat soaking his words. "I do not need _fixing._"

"You need something." Ratchet's tone was cool, removed but final. "Something is wrong. I need to confirm that it isn't something that will lead to you snapping. Preferably, I'll confirm that you're not given to homicide at all. But _something is wrong._ Maybe you're simply an inhuman jerk, maybe you have trouble emotionally connecting to others, or maybe just to humans, or maybe you've got glitches that will end up sending you spiraling into madness. I've seen that happen, and it's not pretty. It will be even uglier here on earth, with all those _delicate_ human bodies."

Ratchet paused, waiting for Sunstreaker to speak. The other mech didn't. "I don't want to reprogram. It's likely that there's something _far_ less invasive we can try.

"And I'm going to go over all those tricky little details of human anatomy until you know the species inside and out. Why? Because you could have killed Bec, and while it may be that the ideal situation is that you stay the slag away from anything sentient and organic, you _will_ end up coming into contact with humans eventually, the planet's crawling with them. So, to that end, you're going to learn what they can take and what they can't, on a purely physical level. And I'll see if I can't fit in a few essential communication tips."

Sunstreaker looked at Ratchet. The medic couldn't tell what he was thinking, which could be a good thing or a bad thing. Honestly, Ratchet had no idea. The yellow mech had him stumped, starting with the way he'd called him for help when he'd found Bec.

"So, let's call that it for today. I'll be talking with you regularly."

"Yes, sir," Sunstreaker said, voice emotionless if you ignored the ever-present hint of belligerence.

He was almost out the med bay doors before Ratchet spoke up again, his voice reaching him from across the room.

"And Sunstreaker?"

"Yes?"

"If you have any problems or questions, feel free to come to me with them."

* * *

"So I ended up talking to Sunstreaker," Mikaela said. Sam, shaking himself out of the peaceful, drowsy calm of cuddling with his girlfriend after a crazy week and too long without any time alone together, sighed.

"Really? What happened? When?"

"That night they caught the Decepticon spy. He was the one assigned to watch over us...I guess it was just coincidence. I mean, I don't see him being given that job on _purpose_."

"Did he try anything?" Sam sounded concerned, and it made Mikaela smile. He was worried for _her_. That sounded kind of selfish, but it meant the world. She loved him so much...

"No. The worst he got was calling me 'human'—I didn't even realize it was him until the end of the conversation. It was...weird."

"Yeah," he said, relaxing against her again. Mikaela smiled, feeling warm inside, and shifted a little, pulling him closer. She let herself get lost in the moment.

* * *

"What's your roommate like?" Miles asked, only partially concentrating on making his way down the weaving rope ladder he was clinging too. He had to raise his voice, since Trent was still up on the table they'd been on, looking down at him, waiting for his turn to go down.

Trent kind of wished Miles would pay more attention—although Gillon had always been _good_ at climbing, he reminded himself, with a mental sneer, memories of him _climbing_ a tree at the lake coming back, seriously, what the hell had he been thinking? He still didn't have a single fucking clue, that had just been _weird_.

But there was a difference between falling six feet out of a tree and falling down a three-story drop to a hard metal floor.

And he was feeling kind of dizzy. _Damn_ it, there was no fucking reason for heights to freak him out! Seriously, what kind of fucking girly fear was that? Especially when it was just because _Gillon_ was on a ladder.

...And he needed to speak. "Okay, I guess."

"You guess?"

"Yeah."

"What's that mean?"

"I dunno."

"Trent?"

"What?"

"That's kind of...vague. You don't know what you mean when you say your roommate's okay you _think?_"

"I don't think he really likes me." Trent stood, swallowed hard, then stepped onto the ladder. One foot down, feel around for the next rung, continue. It shook just as much as it had looked like, from above.

"Why?"

"I... He just _acts_ like it, okay?"

"Did you do anything to piss him off?"

Trent would have shouted at him, or at least told him to fuck off, but he just muttered a curse that Gillon—_Miles _probably didn't even hear, gripping the rope hard enough that it was leaving an imprint in his palms.

"...I'm not saying that you _meant_ to, but—hey, there's a thought. Maybe he's just kind of, uh, heard stuff about you? I mean, uh..."

Trent didn't say a word, and remained silent as he jumped the last few rungs of the ladder, landing on the floor. He started walking, quickly, and Miles hurried to catch up.

"Look, Trent, I'm really sorry."

"Whatever."

"...Alright. I'm kind of being a jerk, and I'm not going to say _anything_ about how you've been one too, and I really am sorry. If that guy you're billeted with is going to act like that, he's a jerk, right? And then it shouldn't matter what he thinks of you! I mean, I don't really—I'm only starting to really get to know you. We are meeting each other _again_. And this time—you seem like a kind of cool guy. And, yeah, I'm sorry."

Trent had stopped walking. Miles, who had his eyes closed in deep thought, trying to make his words say what he needed them to mean, walked into him with a squeak of surprise.

"Thanks," Trent said gruffly, raising a hand to squeeze Miles' shoulder, briefly, as if he wasn't sure if that was an okay thing to do, as if he wasn't sure what _he_ wanted to do.

He started walking again. Miles stared after him, before hurrying off again to catch up.

"Dude! What are you thanking _me_ for? Seriously!"

* * *

Bec hadn't been hungry at noon, when lunch was served—her stomach was still picky with stress. She'd gotten herself something to eat later that afternoon, and she was washing her dishes in the small communal kitchen when the attack came.

The siren was the first sign, an unearthly wail that shattered the peace and quiet that had been filled with small domestic noises: dishes clinking, splashing water in the sink and faint, off-tune humming, something Bec let herself indulge in when no one else was there.

Bec dropped the plate she'd been holding, and it shattered against the metal floor.

She started to hurry towards the edge of the table she was on, confused and scared—what was happening?—but stopped when a car came careening into the room, a soldier jumping out almost before it came to a full stop.

"Get in the car! We're under attack, there's no time to waste!"

It felt like her heart froze in her chest. _Under attack_. It was... A horrifying thought. She started moving, climbing down the ladder, quickly but as if in a daze, still trying to gather her thoughts.

Under attack. What did that mean?

And what was going to happen to her?

...No. That wasn't the question she needed to ask. What was going to happen to the people fighting? The humans and the—Autobots. What happened if they lost? What happened if...

Oh, she didn't know. It was too much! She wasn't ready, wasn't prepared for this; what had she been _thinking_, she didn't know—

She couldn't help. Could she?

Or was there something she could do? If she could try...

Could she? If there was something. And would she.

They were under attack! That fact hummed through her veins, danced over her nerves.

--End chapter 5--


End file.
